Love me dead
by New Neon
Summary: Just because you suffer for something doesn't make it art. The shitty singer and the stupidly lost guitarist would do well to remember that. As if succeeding in the music industry wasn't hard enough without all the stupid decisions and ill-advised emotional ties. Modern rock band ZoSan AU. Songs aren't mine.
1. Chapter 1

The Baratie is a first class music venue with a powerful reputation, it has never had to cancel an act. It doesn't sound like much of a reputation at first, which is until you realise that the Baratie is one of the last stops before musicians hit the big time and tour down the famous route to stardom known as the Grand Line. The Baratie is the last pit stop, in theory it's the last place you can be a big fish in a small pond, but in reality it's a high class venue full of people meeting their make or break moment. The place is always heaving with both talent scouts and fans alike.

And they never, ever, cancel a show.

Every person at the Baratie is a musician in their own right and if the lead guitarist cracks under the pressure and spends the night hurling his guts out from the stress, well, one of the Baratie's guitarists will step up in their place. The show must go on. Any band playing at the Baratie must submit their music in advance both recorded and sheet in order to be allowed to play, and each night everyone at the Baratie takes their copy and studies it, so on the slightest bit of notice any one of them can fill a spot on stage.

Right now the lead singer of a band that's headlining tonight has choked, got himself drunk beyond repair and is currently catatonic under the stairs in the back room. And Sanji is sat on the sofa reading sheet music and listening to the band's set list, preparing to take on the voice of the man currently only using his to moan out in his stupor and occasionally spit bile. The rest of the band are flitting around nervously, throwing alternately sympathetic and furious glances at their passed out singer and wary and grateful ones at Sanji.

"Alright assholes, get up on stage now or I'll kick you up there. The show must go on." Zeff growls, leaning around the door.

Sanji slides his headphones off, cracks his neck, grabs the sheet music and heads out the door first. The band trails nervously behind him but Sanji is as cool as the bottle of water he's casually throwing up in the air and catching again. He's done this hundreds of times before, he's been hundreds of different singers and tonight is no different. As he jumps up on the stage a fair number of the regulars notice him and cheer.

"What happened? Did the singer choke?" One shouts out to him.

"Ah… Unfortunately Kreig is sick this evening and Sanji here is filling in for us. So… I hope you enjoy it!" The guitarist Gin says nervously, standing too close to the mic. Sanji rolls his eyes, Kreig is gonna be feeling sick alright, but not until he wakes up.

"Choke!" The regulars cackle as the band plugs in. Sanji tries not to smirk.

The music isn't really his style, but it's easily in the centre of his vocal range which in fairness is remarkably wide. The music itself is hardly a stretch for him and he's able to easily mimic the passed out man and add his own little flair to it and as soon as Gin realises that they're not all screwed the rest of the band really gets behind it.

Ten songs and two bottles of water later Sanji hops off of the stage to raucous applause and saunters to the bar. He's not big on sticking around for the praise, it's the people who played and wrote the songs that deserve the applause, he just lends his voice to it. The rest of the band heads backstage, no doubt to awaken their stupid lead singer from his catatonic state.

He slides behind the bar and up next to his old man, he snags a bartending apron off of a hook and ties it around himself.

"Sounding a little strained up there lightweight. Sure you can handle this?" Zeff snorts at him.

"Fuck you old man." He shoots back easily.

"What can I get you?" He says to a couple of guys queuing on the other side of the bar. The man doesn't even really look at him and instead recites the order, glancing at the beers on the shelf behind Sanji. It often happens like this, he gets off the stage and behind the bar and people stop looking at him. He's never sure if he's disappointed or relieved by it.

His hands fly over bottles and pull drinks, he cashes up the order in his head and gives the total out to the guy before he's even done putting it through the register which of course just confirms his math. He serves the next customer and the next, after that his attention is caught by two beautiful women leaning on the bar looking right at him.

He rushes over, his face flushing slightly with the pleasure of being the focus of the attention of not one but two beautiful ladies. The first is leaning over the bar, offering Sanji a generous look down her shirt (though he tries not to stare, he is a gentleman after all!), her red hair flows gorgeously around her face and her big bright eyes watch him with interest. Her friend is taller, older and a fair bit more glamorous.

Older ladies, rather than girls in their teens like the first one, tend to have a certain self-confidence about how they look and this one is putting out an air of self-assured sex appeal. She looks damn good and she knows it, she's dressed to highlight the most beautiful parts of her and simply oozes style, her dark hair and wicked smile only make the affect even more dazzling.

"Ladies! What can I do for two gorgeous women like yourselves?" He beams at them.

"It's Sanji, isn't it? You were very, very good up there." The red head smiles at him.

"Why thank you, I hope I managed to carry the evening on, it's always a shame when a performer has to step out but we do our best to fill in the gaps." He nods modestly, accepting her praise with a little flutter in his heart.

"Oh, you were better than that. We've seen Kreig play before and frankly you were better than he was. Do you play with them often?" The dark haired one asks curiously.

"You flatter me, but no, it's the first time I've played with them." He says, shaking his head.

"So, what, if a singer just drops out you fill their place just like that? Even without practicing?" The red head asks in surprise.

"Well, yeah. If you play at the Baratie you have to submit sheet music first, along with a recording so if there's an emergency I can step in if it's a singer or one of the others if it's a guitarist or drummer or whatever. I was just sight reading and working from memory really. Can I get you anything to drink or were you wanting to know about playing here?" He asks, not able to quite place if they're here to order a drink or wanting to ask about performing. They look like the musical type a little bit at least.

"A little of both, if I could get a tequila screw – blood orange if you have it. And… Robin do you just want a double whiskey? And… something for yourself too." She smiles as he friend agrees and hands him a note.

"You can step into any singing role then? If so we might have a job offer for you." The dark haired one, apparently called Robin, says smoothly.

"I'm sorry ladies, I don't steal other singer's jobs. I get plenty of offers from bands who have difficult singers who just want the same voice and none of the problems. I won't put anyone out of work. Sorry to turn you down." He answers, shaking his head as he pours tequila into a glass.

"We don't have a singer, we have a guitarist that's filling in and really he'd be happier just playing his guitars. We haven't had a singer in this band, you wouldn't be replacing or ousting anyone. Oh, thank you." Robin smiles at him as she takes her whiskey from him. Both women are looking at him expectantly and Sanji finds himself frozen.

"Please come and audition with us, we could even come here during the day if you'd be more comfortable here. Please?" The red head asks, fluttering her eyelashes at him. Sanji knows when he's being manipulated but… well… she is very pretty and it's hard to say no to a lady. But still… he's not sure about this.

It's true his dream has always been to be in a band and play at the very best venues. Supposedly there's even this exclusive lounge in a venue along the Grand Line where only the very best singers get taken back to sing called the All Blue. The acoustics of the place are supposed to be perfect, enough to make any real singer weep from the sound. Even better is that in theory it's hidden within another venue, so unless you're good enough you could pass right by it and never know! He'd love to be there, even if people say it's just an urban legend.

Still, he has his responsibilities here. If he left the rest of the Baratie staff might have trouble filling in for him. There are a few other singers but none as good as him, and they find it a little harder to pick songs up so quickly. He'd hate to just step out and be responsible for the Baratie losing it's perfect reputation.

"I don't think I can… my old man needs me here to help run the place." He says, shaking his head unhappily and handing her the tequila screw she asked for.

"That's a shame. But… well, would you mind still showing us the place? You could sing for us then, it wouldn't have to be an audition and you wouldn't have to agree to anything, but I'd still love to hear you. Please?" the red head asks, popping the swizzle stick from her drink into her mouth and rolling it around with her tongue in a way that makes Sanji's mouth go dry.

"Sure, tomorrow. Yes." His mouth says without the permission of his brain.

"Wonderful, thank you!" She chirps happily, leaning over the bar to kiss him on the cheek before quite literally bouncing away from the bar.

"See you tomorrow Sanji, and don't forget that drink for yourself." The dark haired one purrs and slinks off after her friend whilst Sanji's head spins.

"Bye." He calls after them, feeling a little dazed.

He turns around to head down the bar to find some more customers only to come face to face with his old man Zeff's impressive moustache right in his face.

"What was that all about?" The old man asks him, the moustache twitching judgementally at him.

"Nothing. They're just coming to check out the venue tomorrow." He shrugs, stepping back so his face isn't right at facial hair level and he can look the old man in the eyes.

"It sounded more like an audition to me." Zeff says flatly.

"Well, it wasn't. They already have a singer." He shrugs, not quite believing their story about this guitarist that only "sort of" sings. He nods at a guy ordering a Budweiser and he quickly pops the cap off of one and hands it over, exchanging the money in his head and quickly ringing through the rill.

"That's not what I heard." Zeff remarks from behind him.

"Well, if you know so much you shitty bastard, why are you asking me?" He challenges, shooting an evil look over his shoulder at the old man.

The old guy just huffs and serves two older guys wanting some European beers. Sanji sighs to himself and fulfils an order for a Jack Daniels and coke.

"Good luck with your audition, I guess." Zeff says eventually.

"It's not an audition, and I'm not going anywhere old man." He snaps back irritably. As if he'd just leave this place and his old man, not after the guy taught him so much, helped turn him into the artist he is today. His old man even adopted him too, he's not even Zeff's kid and yet he owes him so much. Like hell he'd just leave him.

"Too bad. You should do something with your life, be happy." Zeff states, looking piercingly at Sanji.

For a moment he finds himself pinned by his old man's ice blue gaze, it's faintly accusatory. A lot of people assume that he's actually Zeff's biological son, what with them both being blonde haired and blue eyed, but in reality the old guy's death stare is proof enough for Sanji that there's no way he's related to that elderly psycho.

"I am doing something with my life right here, and I'm perfectly content thank you." He answers back, finally able to make his mouth work again.

"Content isn't the same as happy." Zeff points out and limps off on his fake leg, leaving Sanji dazed and numb.

Right. Okay, that drink sounds like a really good idea now. He pours himself a generous double of whiskey, necks it and gets back to work. The bar is winding down now that the acts have finished and soon it's last call.

It's only when he's flipping tables and sweeping the floor after everyone has gone that he realises that he forgot to ask those ladies what time they'd be coming by tomorrow. He groans and realises that it means that he'll have to be here all day tomorrow.

He manages to get lots done the next day. He cleans all of the table and actually has an opportunity to give the nice wooden ones some beeswax polish to protect them from watermarks from the fuckers too inconsiderate enough to use coasters. He cleans the floor properly and realigns all of the audio equipment and then because it's disgusting he cleans all of the equipment in the audio booth which appears to have been inhabited by some kind of gorilla, on a related note he must remember to kick Patty in the face next time he sees him. He's partway through inventory when the front door to the bar opens and the pretty redhead from yesterday peeks through.

"Oh, come on in!" He calls out to her and ditches his notepad under the bar.

She smiles at him and walks inside, with her dark haired friend behind her. To his disappointment the rest of the band that walks in with her is all male, but Sanji realises that he can't have everything in life.

They're a pretty eclectic looking bunch actually. There's a huge guy with bright blue hair and big star tattoos on his arms, who introduces himself as Franky and then tries to dislocate Sanji's arm with an extremely enthusiastic handshake. There's a bouncy looking dark haired guy who the beautiful red head (whose name is Nami) introduces as Luffy, she doesn't need to tell him that he's the drummer as by that point he's already leapt up on stage and attacked the drum kit with an enthusiasm that makes Sanji's ears ache. What does surprise him is that he's apparently the front man of their band.

A very worn out looking guy with a long nose and curly dark hair chases the drummer, telling him not to break anything and please get down from that. That apparently is Usopp, who is a keyboard player for the band. Surprisingly they've got a little kid with them, the boy can't be more than 14 and Sanji is actually a little uncomfortable around him. He has on comically oversized headphones and a giant pink hat.

"I'm Chopper, where's your sound system? Oh, there." The boy asks and then spots it, and scampers off to the area, immediately plugging himself in.

"He's far more mature than he looks. You're looking a little overwhelmed Sanji." Robin says smoothly in his ear, making him jump.

"I don't know, they're all just very… lively." He remarks, as from across the bar Nami screams at Luffy to stop climbing on the furniture and sit back down at the drums.

"They certainly are. They're the best though." Robin smiles secretively.

"What do you play?" He asks, looking up at her with adoration in his eyes.

"A little of this, a little of that. Violin and harp mainly. Not a lot of call for that in most of our songs but you'd be surprised where you can work it in, especially with an electric harp. Mainly though, I film." Robin answers, pulling a video camera out of her bag and showing him. It's a nice camera, Sanji doesn't know enough about cameras to say more than that but it certainly looks expensive and high quality.

"Smile, and don't mind me." She says, turning it on and pointing it at him.

Sanji grins awkwardly, suddenly finding himself a little camera-shy.

"Oh-ho-ho! I suppose this means I get to play the electric guitar today instead of the piano!" An older guy trills with laugher from the stage. Sanji glances up, he wonders if this is the guitarist come singer that he's concerned that Nami could be tricking him into replacing.

"Are you the guy who's been singing?" He asks, coming up to the stage.

"Oh no, that would be Zoro. He's our guitarist, but I've recently taken to playing though I'm usually on the piano. I'm not as good as him by far but I'm still capable, we try to make sure that I can fill in for him in case he's sick or injured, I understand that you run a similar system here." The older guy smiles down at him. He's skeleton thin but he seems happy enough.

"Yeah, we do." Sanji nods.

"Excellent. I'm Brook by the way." The guy introduces himself, giving Sanji a bony yet polite handshake.

"Nami says that you can pick up music just by hearing it right away!" Luffy yells needlessly loudly from the drums. Sanji stares at him and wonders if there's something wrong with his brain, he seems to be filled with the energy of about fifteen small children hopped up on red bull.

"More or less, usually I have a little bit of time, but yeah." He answers with a reserved nod.

"THAT'S SO COOL!" Luffy sqawks.

"Shut up Luffy. Here, I brought the sheet music and the music like you talked about. Would you be so kind as to perform for us?" Nami smiles at him, handing him papers and an ipod.

Sanji sighs. Zeff was right, he's been tricked into an audition. Still, it'll be fun and these guys seem friendly enough. It's not often he gets to goof off and just play for fun, he ought to do it.

"Sure thing." He agrees and pulls the headphones around his neck up over one ear.

"Is this the one that you're wanting?" He asks, switching on the little music player as he points to the top song.

"Yes, if you'd just sign this first though. It just says that you're not going to take our music, just to protect us of course." Nami says innocently, thrusting some paper before his eyes.

Sanji skims it very quickly, it seems to just say that he won't steal their songs, which is a reasonable enough request given his abilities. He scribbles his signature on the end and she quickly pulls it away from him, folds it and shoves it inside her bra with a catlike smile.

"Yeah, you didn't read that either did you? None of us did with things she got us to sign. I'm guessing that you did what we did and signed away your immortal soul to her, it's usually the second to last clause." Franky sighs from where he's sat on stage with his bass guitar propped on one knee.

"Wait- what?" Sanji exclaims, looking around at Nami again.

"Too late, you really should read things better. Anyway! Back to the music, this one please!" Nami smiles and taps on the paper.

Figuring there's nothing else to do for it Sanji just resigns himself to his apparently now soulless life and sits on the edge of the stage. The last thing he hears before he turns the noise cancelling on his headphones on is Usopp questioning whether anyone can really learn a song like that.

He selects the song on the player that matches the title at the top of the sheet music. "Lake Pontchatrain".

He lets the music play and reads along as he listens. The first listen through is try to get into the feel of the song and to analyse the singer's voice, only this time he doesn't have to mimic the singer, he can put his own energy into it a little more.

The song is really… really freaking weird. It's sort of a story, a horror story in fact. About a group of guys who go on a road trip and with the exception of the singer get hypnotised and drowned by some lake monster. It's really odd but… it's really fun as well, before the song is done he's grinning his head off. The energy in the song is huge, it's bouncing and fun and stupidly and deliberately melodramatic. The singer in the recording certainly has the power and gusto to pull it off, though his voice is a little unrefined and his range is somewhat limited. In short he's not a singer but doing a damn good job of filling in. Pretty much what Nami said he was.

He rewinds the song once more and burns it into his brain for eternity. When he does this he never forgets a song, as much as he's learnt some shitty songs over the years, he only needs to hear something once or twice before it's in there forever. He's memorised about nine billion radio jingles to the extent that he doesn't even have a radio in his car anymore because knowing them drives him completely bonkers.

At the end of the second listen he slides the headphones off of his head and the world returns to him. He stands up to find the band curiously watching him.

"Two listens and that's it? Seriously?" the keyboard guy asks him sceptically.

"I'm ready if you are." He answers cockily.

"Super!" Franky exclaims and starts with the guitar.

Sanji turns around and faces the right way. As Franky plays the guitar intro and Luffy comes in on the drums he relaxes into the music and feels it flow along as he saw it on the sheet. He opens his mouth and sings.

"_I'll tell it like it happened, it was Darius and Noland and me_

_Just a few po' boys trying to get up outta Missouri_

_Took 55 to Louisiana, stopped by the highway to eat"_

The guitar for the song is pretty cool and very much his kind of thing. He's not fussy about the music he sings on stage- in his job he can't be, but he always enjoys the opportunity to sing something that he'd listen to for fun.

"_They both had crawfish, strictly chicken for me_

_Back out under thunderheads, the radio was southern soul_

_They interrupted Clarence Carter with a strange-ass local show_

_They were sayin'_

_Come down to Lake Pontchartrain_

_Rest your soul and feed your brain_

_That's where you will get to see_

_Everything the water can be"_

He can feel the others getting behind the song now, perhaps feeling that he's not going to screw this up. Nami and Robin watch him from their places by the sound area with smiles on their faces, he continues unbroken.

"_The rain was comin' down, the wind was howlin' outside of Slidell_

_It was the kinda night that makes you think the whole world's goin' to hell_

_We got off on an exit 'cause we couldn't read the map so great_

_Near the Choctaw Motel, we parked to deliberate_

_When out of the bayou came a man like the lake had a tongue_

_He was right up on the glass, all yellow eyed_

_Black teeth, bangin' on the windshield_

_Screamin' like a demon at the top of his lungs"_

As he predicted when he was listening to it, his voice handles the pitch change there just fine without catching as the recorded guy's voice had. The recording had the others come in now and as he continues, they join in for the rather spooky chorus. Sanji's in time perfectly and their voices all merge together as if they'd sung it a thousand times.

"_Come down to Lake Pontchartrain_

_Rest your soul and feed your brain_

_Free for you and all your friends_

_Crawfish 'til the bitter end_

_Come down to Lake Pontchartrain_

_Wade to where the shallows break_

_That's where you will get to see_

_Everything the water can be"_

He has to fight down the grin, knowing it'll affect his voice. But it's hard because he's actually having a blast. The song might be weird as balls but damn if it isn't FUN. The song picks back up with him on his own again.

"_I was driving out of there as fast as a Camry could_

_But the interstate was flooded and I had to take the road through the woods_

_Bad move in retrospect, the road disappeared in the rain_

_And I stood on the brakes when I saw the sign "Lake Pontchartrain"_

_Darius was yelling that he saw somebody out in the swells_

_He jumped out runnin' and Noland was goin' as well_

_Come back! Why the hell would they leave the car?_

_And that's when I heard it, make no mistake_

_The voices were calling them from under the lake"_

And here Sanji really gets to show off some of his range and how easily he can change notes, it's a nice chance to sing with the rest of the band, although his natural volume is somewhat overpowering them so he tries to dial it back a little. Soon though, that bit ends and they're back to repeating the same creepy crazy line again.

"_Come down to Lake Pontchartrain_

_Come down to Lake Pontchartrain_

_Come down to Lake Pontchartrain_

_Come down to Lake Pontchartrain_

_The crawfish were screaming, the waves danced in time_

_My friends went in deeper, the water had climbed_

_I watched in terror, the lake opened wide_

_And horribly roaring, it pulled them inside_

_That's how it happened, why would I lie?_

_There were no bodies, I've got none to hide_

_I'm just a boy, lost his friends in the rain_

_Any more questions, just go and ask Lake Pontchartrain!"_

He finishes the song with a dramatic energetic flair that he simply couldn't resist. Nami and Robin cheer and applaud and there's an enthusiastic "super!" from behind him.

"I'm amazed that you managed to do that from only hearing it just now." The tall thin guy says with an impressed nod.

"So COOL!" Luffy bounces from behind the drumset.

The guy at the keyboard however is just staring at him thoughtfully, his eyes run over him assessing him and sizing him up. Sanji juts his jaw defiantly, if this guy didn't like him he can get bent, Sanji's sure he can't do any better or they wouldn't need a singer at all.

"I think this guy's better than Zoro, by a good margin too. This… this could work." He says after a moment.

"You think Zoro will like him?" The drummer asks excitedly, attacking the drum set with energy again. The long nosed keyboard player winces at the noise, and when Luffy's stopped he speaks again.

"Nah, Zoro's gonna _hate_ him. But he'll respect him, he's got no ego and this guy here is more than good enough for Zoro to know the difference." Usopp remarks, flicking a glance Sanij's way. That raises Sanji's hackles, they're all talking about him like he's not even there!

"You're all acting like I've agreed to something I've not." He points out flatly.

"Join my band!" Luffy yells from the drum kit, his big earnest grin showing around the symbols as he bounces in his seat.

"Luffy's enthusiasm aside, we really would like to offer you the spot Sanji, you're very talented." Nami says, looking up at him from the bottom of the stage. Sanji shakes his head and jumps off of the stage, landing next to her.

"I appreciate the offer, but I really can't. And I didn't actually agree to audition, I was supposed to be showing you the venue, but I suspect that's not why you came here my flower." He smiles at her.

"You did agree to it being an audition actually, like I said, you should read the things you sign a little more carefully." Nami grins at him, tugging at the edge of the page that he signed where it sits tucked in her bra. To his credit his nose doesn't start bleeding at the jiggle that movement causes, though only just.

"Even so, I'm afraid I simply can't accept, I'm needed here." He apologises sadly.

"No you're not."

The voice makes him jump and Sanji turns to see his old man standing behind the bar, regarding him with a stiff look. Sanji scowls and turns to face him.

"What's that supposed to mean? I'm needed here." He challenges, folding his arms. There's no way that Zeff could ever replace him and the old man is family to him, it's not like he ever would anyway.

"Pft. You think you're the only one in the world who can sing? We have other staff who can do the job." Zeff says sternly. His words are like a smack in the face to Sanji. Sure he can think of a few of the other guys here who like to sing but they're not really singers. There's a huge difference from being able to sing and being a singer.

"No way, and even if they can none of them can pick up songs as quick as me, you need me!" He argues, not willing to admit the sting of his old man not thinking that he's better than those other guys. Even if he doesn't want to admit it, he does feel it in his chest, that tiny part of him that always wants so much for his old man to be proud of him is recoiling away from the idea that Zeff doesn't think what he does it worth enough to keep him.

"I don't need you. In fact, you ought to accept that job because you don't have one here anymore, you're fired." The old man says.

Sanji actually staggers back in shock at that. Fired? What?

WHAT?!

"YOU CAN'T FIRE ME!" He yells loud enough to make the glasses on the other side of the room rattle.

"I already have, now take the job." Zeff orders, turning his gaze to Nami who is watching with interest.

"Look, I get what you're trying to do old man," he says through gritted teeth, "but you can't just expect me to join up with the first band that offers. I barely know these guys, and I'm pretty sure that they're not even from this city. How would I even play with them if I live so far away? It doesn't work."

"You're right. Get your shit, I'm kicking you out. You're nineteen now, I don't have to put up with your mooching here for free anymore. Go rent a place on your own, near the band you're in. Get out." Zeff says back, obviously entirely serious.

Sanji's head is swimming. He takes two numb steps towards his old man, but the shitty geezer's gaze doesn't get any more forgiving, it's hard and angry. What's he done to deserve this? What did he do that was so bad? He can't think of anything.

"You're kicking me out? But… I'm your son." He says in a small wounded voice, looking up at the only father that he's ever known.

"My son wouldn't just fritter his life away in some bar, coasting through on a job he could do in his sleep whilst his dream passes him by. You're no son of mine. Take the job, move out and I might not bar you from the place as well." Zeff snarls ruthlessly at him.

Sanji is close enough now that only the bar itself is separating them. He's shaking inside, pulling himself apart at the seams as all he's ever loved is being taken from him. He loves his old man, even if they argue all the time, he loves this bar and- fuck it, he loves the people he works with too. This place is _home_ to him, how can Zeff do this?

"Zeff please, this isn't just some bar. It's your dream, it's my home. I love it here, please…" He whispers, his heart breaking in his chest.

"It's my dream, now get your own and get out. Useless kid." Zeff growls in his face and turns and stalks out of the room, leaving Sanji feeling like he's going to die.

The only sound that Sanji can hear in the bar is his own heartbeat in his ears.

"I suppose that this might be a good time to mention that there's a room with the job too, free as part of your contract." Nami pipes up quietly from behind him.

Sanji breaks into a run, dashing around the bar so fast his feet skid on the floor and he slides into the edge of the bar, jarring his hip as he knocks it. He sprints around the corner into the back that Zeff left through. He runs up the stairs two at a time, panic humming in his veins like a nest of bees. He doesn't even make it to the top before a suitcase smacks him in the chest. He catches it roughly only to be hit in the face by two empty duffle bags.

"Please, you're not serious." He pleads, climbing the last few stairs and looking desperately at Zeff.

"Get out. Pack your shit and go, don't let me see you again until you've achieved something." The old man growls as he turns and walks off into his own room, slamming the door after him.

Sanji stands frozen at the top of the stairs. Part of him wants to chase Zeff down, to bang on his door and beg him not to do this. But no. He won't do that. He's begged enough and if that bastard of a father of his- no, he's not his father, if he doesn't want him anymore then Sanji's not going to stay. He doesn't want to hang around being a disappointment to that shrivelled up talentless old shitbag. The only reason that he has the Baratie is because his band died before they made it to the top and Zeff never went for it again. They say those who can't do, teach. Well in this case those who can't do start music venues up for those who can. Well fuck him.

Sanji blinks repeatedly and storms into his room, cursing his hay fever, never mind that it's October because _that's_ why his eyes are watering, nothing else. He grabs his things and throws them into bags and suitcases, stuffing clothes and shoes in together, not caring for once if things get scrunched up. He wraps his laptop in his hoodie and shoves it in his suitcase, throwing chargers and his toothbrush in after it. He curses the tightness in his throat and grits his teeth hard as he lets himself get truly angry.

How could that bastard do this to him? He'd thought that he'd cared but clearly he was fucking WRONG. God fucking damnit, this hay fever was making his eyes water. Smoking would cure that. He lights up and draws the calming nicotine into his lungs, the only man had always told him to quit, told him it'd ruin his voice. Well, he hadn't listened to him then and he certainly wasn't going to listen to the treacherous old shit head now was he?

He hefts his bags up, desperate to get out of his too small room and this bar and his life. He just needs to go. He all but runs down the stairs, bags over his shoulder and suitcase in hand.

"Geez Nami, you just made a guy homeless so he'd join. I know he's amazing but that's still pretty unethical." Franky's voice floats up to him as he comes down the last few steps.

"That's not my fault." Nami huffs.

"You didn't exactly stop it." The long nosed keyboardist points out as Sanji comes back out into the bar.

"I'll join. You mentioned that there was a room." Sanji says quickly, looking right at Nami.

The redhead smiles slowly and broadly.

"I did. We'd love to have you, I've got a contract here and ready for you." She smiles, pulling it out of the jacket she's since put on.

"Can I sign it on the way? I want to get out of here." He asks, feeling suddenly claustrophobic in this place.

This time the red-head's face is sympathetic. He doesn't blame her for this whole mess, he'd never be so callous as to accuse a lady of such a thing, but all the same she looks as if she feels a little bad for his predicament.

"Sure thing. Usopp can drive you or if you have your own car Franky can ride with you and give you directions." Nami offers.

"Quit just offering my car out." Usopp mutters irritably, glaring at Nami from behind his keyboard case.

"I've got my own car, you okay to show me where to go?" He asks, flicking a look at the blue haired guy.

"Yeah. You want to get out of here now?" the other guy asks, shoving his sunglasses up his nose a little more.

"Do I ever." Sanji mutters, leading the way and stomping out of the building. He resists the temptation to kick the door shut after himself as that would be rather childish and stroppy, but damn if he doesn't wanna kick the shit out of something right now.

He heads around the back of the bar to where his car is and throws his stuff in the back. The blue haired giant of a man follows him and carefully slides his electric bass guitar into the back and then gets in the front passenger seat.

"Left out of here and just follow the signs out towards Syrup, you know it?" Franky asks as Sanji turns the engine on and peels out of the car park.

He nods, he does know it. Syrup is a medium sized town on the outskirts of the city, not small but not huge either, just average. From what Sanji's seen driving through the place it has average bars, average people and average everything. He'd never seen himself living in a place like that, he's always thought of himself as a city guy, but then he'd always assumed he'd stay at the Baratie. Wrong.

His knuckles are white on the wheel as he grips it hard. He grinds his teeth on his cigarette and drives in silence.

"Hey, listen. I know Nami can be a bit manipulative but she didn't know anything like that was going to happen. But she's used to getting what she wants and if she gets to help you out and get the singer she wants… well, she's not going to say no. I just don't want you to think badly of her, her heart's in the right place most of the time." Franky says after a little while, with a sidelong look at him around his sunglasses.

Sanji peels his grip off of the wheel and ties to relax, rolling his shoulders out to try to ease some of the tension hiding there. He sighs a big smoky sigh into the air.

"I didn't think she had planned that or anything. I'm just pissed at my old man doing that to me." Sanji answers, crushing the butt of the cigarette into the ash tray in the car dash and lighting up another one handed.

"That was a pretty rough thing to do but… well, I get the impression that he thought he was doing it for your own good. I'm not sure that's how you go about doing that but… well, I don't know man. You know him better than me, I'm just guessing. Sorry you had to go through that either way." The other man offers him in a weak consolation.

Sanji inhales and lets the smoke float in his lungs for a little before breathing it out through his nose. He changes lanes and thinks a little. He doesn't know if Zeff was really doing that so he could chase his dream, but he's too mad to think straight about it, so he's better off just not.

"Tell me a little more about this band of yours… or… ours. I don't even know the name." He says eventually, looking across to his passenger.

"We're the Strawhats." Franky says simply. Sanji refrains from saying that's a dumbass name, but he thinks it really fucking loudly.

"I suppose we've been together a little over a year, but we were all in another band before that. Technically _this_ band has never had a singer, but the band that we were _all_ in before this one did." The other man continues as Sanji drives along the road.

"So I am replacing someone." He states flatly. He knew it, goddamnit. At least it's not someone who's currently there though, it sounds like they've been gone for a year, which is a little odd.

"Eh. Not really, and I wouldn't think of it like that, the singer left and we reformed as something new. But… well… I know the others won't want to talk about it, and don't bring it up if you can help it. But I don't like the idea of you walking in totally blind, as much as Nami might want you to." Franky says, pushing his sunglasses up into his coiffed blue hair.

"If you actually read that big ass contract that Nami's given you, you'll see that there's a whole load of standard stuff in there. You know, you agree to practice regularly, to a fair share of money we make from gigs, to show up at performances sober and not screw up. Usual stuff. But there's also a bit in there that whilst you're entitled to any royalties from any songs you write, you can't take the songs themselves with you if you leave and that all practice sessions are recorded." The bassist explains.

"That sounds a little odd." Sanji frowns. It must be weird getting recorded all the time, even if they're just running through songs for practicing. He's never actually _been_ in a band before but he's sure that's not normal.

"Yeah. Three guesses as to what your predecessor did." The other man says flatly, sounding agitated. Sanji glances over at the other man, who by the way is wearing the teeniest hot pants ever despite it being fucking winter, looks uncomfortable and irritable. It's not exactly psychic of Sanji for him to tell that this is clearly a sore subject with the other man, it seems like the singer before him really did leave on bad terms.

"I don't know, what?" He asks, curiously.

"_She_ stole about 80 percent of our songs and walked right out into a music deal that she got for taking them. Because nothing had been officially written down as to who wrote them and because that label had bags of money there was nothing we could do. We could have gone to court but we don't have the money for it and we'd lose, among other things. Hence the thesaurus length contract on your bag, if you write songs with us and leave you'll still get paid for them but nothing else." Franky says, jerking his thumb at the back of the car. Sanji flicks his gaze to the rear view mirror and indeed sees that the contract Franky's mentioning is seriously about dictionary thick.

"She? It was a woman?" He questions after a moment, making the other man roar with laughter.

"Oh man, out of all that I just told you that's what you took from it?" Franky guffaws, his black mood seeming to lift.

"Well I could tell you that's it's a shitty thing to do to someone but you already know that. And I could say that I've no intention of screwing you guys over, but then again someone who did would say that too, so it's meaningless to say. I'm just interested in the fact that it's a woman I'm taking over from, if you're all geared up to write for a female voice don't you think you might have made the wrong choice?" He frowns as he slows down for a junction.

"Nah, bro. Zoro's our main writer and the songs she took with her he either wrote with her or for her, we don't have 'em anymore and frankly it wasn't his best work. What we got to keep were the cool songs like the one you just did. They're ones that Zoro and Usopp wrote together and that Zoro would sing and hey, you've already proved that you can do that and better, that's what we want." Franky smiles encouragingly at him.

Sanji chews at his cigarette as he drives, he doesn't know what this band is actually going to be like. He's only heard just one of their songs and whilst they all seem like nice people he's got no idea what they're really like. And to top it all off he doesn't have much of a choice but to join up since his old man just kicked him out. What the hell happened to his day? Where did everything go so weird?

"Oh, just down here, then up the hill." Franky points out to him.

"This is all really sudden, I think I'm in shock here. That way?" He asks at the end, pointing up a long road.

"Yeah man, we're that one at the very top. Big long ass driveway, blue door. We all share the place, it's just easier for weird unsociable practice hours, and it makes it harder to lose Zoro." The man laughs, pointing the house out to him.

Sanji whistles as he pulls towards it, it's a huge house with about four stories and massive lawns on either side around it. The building is incredibly impressive and could easily be called a mansion. Unless music has started paying people a lot more than they used to at the level below performing at the Baratie then something is up here. Perhaps one of them is filthy rich. Still, it's not a bad step up from his current status of homeless.

There's a big garage to the side with easily enough space for four or five cars, so seeing as he can, he pulls into it. He drops out of gear and puts his handbrake on and then turns the car off. He still feels slightly dazed.

"Looks like you drive pretty fast when you're wound up, we got here before everyone else." Franky remarks, hopping out of the car and walking to the back to get his guitar out.

Sanji follows his lead and opens the back door to grab his bags.

"Nami's probably gonna want this signed when she gets here so…" The guy trails off, handing Sanji's sizeable contract to him.

He hefts it in his hands. He supposes it's not too late to back out, he could say he's changed his mind, give the contract back to Franky and drive off. He could stay in a hotel whilst he tries to find a new job and a place to live. But… well… being in a band and making it to All Blue is his dream, and they're offering him somewhere to live upfront and do what he enjoys doing. If he hates them and the place then he can always leave but he owes it to himself to take a shot at his dream, that'll show that old coot.

He flicks through the contract, spotting the bits that Franky had pointed out on the ride over here, including the odd clause about consenting to be filmed by the band whenever, and that all practice sessions will be recorded. It also seems like whenever he's working on anything musical he has to be in the studio to do it. Whatever. He flicks to the last page and signs where he's asked to. He hands it back to Franky who beams happily at him.

"Super! Nami will probably have keys and junk for you but the least I can do is show you your room, there's only one left in this building that's free." Franky says, grabbing one of Sanji's bags as Sanji grabs the other two.

As his hot pants wearing guide is unlocking the front door, a van pulls up and parks next to him. Sanji vaguely remembers seeing it outside of the Baratie but he was too furious about Zeff to really pay attention. Luffy bounces out of an open window like some overexcited puppy and bounds over to them.

"You signed right? You're really in the band! I knew it!" Luffy chatters gleefully, grabbing the signed contract from Sanji's hand and doing a pointless victory lap of the garage.

"Is he always-" Sanji begins.

"YES." Franky groans and shoulders the door open.

"I can't see Zoro's bike anywhere, I guess he's out. He doesn't have work does he?" Usopp frowns, climbing out of the driver's seat of the van and dropping to the floor.

"He didn't mention it, and it's not on the schedule if he did. But I suppose they could have called him in last minute." Robin muses as she gets out the van with Nami.

"Well, good. It'll give Sanji more time to settle in before- oh, thanks Luffy. Hey, did you chew on this contract?" Nami frowns, looking after Luffy who has already hurled himself in the back of the van with a clatter of cymbals.

Sanji decides to leave the ladies to that and follows Franky inside the building. Once he steps inside the door there's a big fancy entranceway with rooms branching off it on either side, in the middle of the room is a sweeping staircase that leads up to the next floor. It looks like something out of a fancy English castle almost, with red carpeting running up the stairs.

"Okay, we'll give you a proper tour later, but the studio is down in the basement, you get to it through there." Franky says, gesturing to a door set into the wall by the staircase that dominates the hallway.

"How can you guys afford this place? It's huge." Sanji wonders aloud as they climb the stairs.

"Well, it was in a bit of a state when I got here and my brother runs a construction company. The land and the original building had been given to Usopp by his… well, she's his fiancée now but then she was his girlfriend. So, my brother and I did the place up with everything that we'd ever need, mainly from things that were left over from other projects so it was free or super cheap. Because we don't pay rent for the building or a mortgage or anything the only costs that we have are the bills and maintaining the place, and like I said, my brother runs a construction company." Franky explains with a grin.

"And exactly how rich is Usopp's other half if she can afford to give him a place like this?" he asks, as Franky leads him up the second floor and up another set of stairs.

"Stupidly well off. Old money, you know?" the other man answers with a laugh and heads up another set of stairs.

Sanji adjusts the bag on his shoulder, he hadn't planned on climbing quite so many stairs, but they keep climbing!

"Your room is in the loft, it means it's really big but you gotta go up a lot of stairs to get there. It'll be quiet too, you'll just have Zoro across the way and you only have to share a bathroom with him. And believe me, if you lived on my floor and had to share a bathroom with Nami or Robin you'd appreciate not having to wait for hours." Franky grumbles. They head up the last set of stairs and into the loft space.

There's a bare wooden floor underfoot and a wide arched window at the other end, it opens slightly at the bottom and there's a slight breeze blowing the curtains. Franky turns to his right and opens the door and heads into the room. With a relieved sigh the tall (and mostly pantless man) drops Sanji's bags just inside the door.

The room is big and airy with a surprisingly high gabled ceiling, which even at it's lowest point is comfortably above Sanji's head height and at it's highest is well above what Sanji could reach even standing on any of the furniture in here. The room is painted almost entirely white, except for the dark ceiling beams and the bare beech wood floorboards. There's a bare mattress on a large bed which has to be king-size at least and desk across the other side of the room. Other than that the room is empty. It feels a little lonely to Sanji, he's used to his cramped little room above the Baratie that he's had since he was a little kid, and it hadn't been a big room when he was small either. To suddenly go to a place this big just highlights how far from his home he really is.

"Okay, you've got that bathroom through that door there. There's a door that leads to Zoro's in there so I'd lock both unless you wanna introduce yourself pretty awkwardly!" Franky laughs loudly, the sound echoing in the Spartan room.

"Where is this mythical guitarist anyway? How come he wasn't at the audition?" Sanji asks. The question had been bothering him for some time, and he'd initially thought that perhaps this Zoro fellow really was the singer for this band and he was being tricked into replacing _him_. He'd dropped that idea when he found about his mysterious lady predecessor, although that was another mystery he was dying to solve.

"Zoro? Who knows man, he's a bit of a mystery. Half time I swear he just wanders off and gets lost, he does when he's out with us anyhow. He'll show up sooner or later. Anyhow, I'll let you get settled." Franky says and, with a wave, disappears from Sanji's new room.

Sanji looks numbly around the room and after a few moments he walks over to the bed and drops down onto it. What the hell is happening to him? He pulls his feet up onto the bedframe and lifts his hips so that he can get his phone out of his pocket. There's no calls or messages from Zeff or anyone else at the Baratie, no emails either.

He scrolls through his phonebook until he comes to the old man's number. He bites his lip as his pride snarls at him, like hell is he going to call that old bastard after he's just abandoned him like that! If he doesn't care then Sanji doesn't care either. Shitty excuse for a father!

With that Sanji launches himself to his feet and throws himself into the job of unpacking his stuff. He finds places for his clothes and settles his laptop on the desk, he settles his shoes in the corner and arranges the few hastily packed books into a little pile. When he's done that he puts his bags in the back of a wardrobe and straightens everything out.

He heads outside of his new room and is about to descend the stairs when a noise makes him stop and tilt his head to listen. It's a voice. He pauses, one foot halfway to the stair below.

"_And it feel so wrong, _

_to sing this song, _

_but maybe you'll hear me,_

_somehow, and hum along." _The muffled voice sings.

Sanji's eyes widen, he knows that voice. It's the voice from the recording, it's a different song sure but it's certainly him. He knows it's not a recording because there's no music but it's him. He steps silently to the door and listens more.

"_Maybe you'll be kidnapped by pirates,_

_And they'll take you to their hideout,_

_As pirates often do." _

Sanji holds his breath and leans on the door, it's open so it swings in silently, letting Sanji peek around the edge.

The place is the same size as his room and a perfect mirror in structure, except for the fact that it looks like several wardrobes have just exploded over everything. There are t-shirts and jeans flung over every surface and boots littering the floor. In the middle of the room sits a green haired guy who looks to be about Sanji's age. He's sat on the floor in front of an upturned bicycle with tools in his hands, he's singing along quietly to himself as he does something to one of the wheels with a wrench.

"_But I would find the secret map,_

_And I would vigilante bushwhack,_

_Through the jungles of Peru._

_Just to save you and I'd take you North to Mexico,_

_And you could tell me your life story,_

_on the steps of a Mayan temple,_

_where we'd camp, _

_singing nonsense songs and-" _The green haired guy suddenly cuts off, his body jolting and his head suddenly snapping around to look wide eyed at Sanji. He realises that he's actually taken a step into the guy's room, hypnotised as he was by the strange tale being sung.

The green haired guy yelps and flings the wrench in the direction of Sanji's head, making him cry out and duck.

"Sorry! I didn't mean to just barge in!" He apologises hastily, backing away. He eyes the dent in the wall left by the wrench and is exceedingly glad that it wasn't his face that it just hit.

"Who the HELL are you?! What are you doing in my house?!" the green haired guy yells furiously, leaping to his feet and advancing threateningly on Sanji.

"I'm Sanji! Franky brought me here!" He explains hastily, backing out into the hallway.

"Well why the hell are you in my room?!" the other guy snarls angrily.

"I didn't- sorry! I just heard you singing and I thought I should introduce myself but then I didn't want to interrupt so-" he continues.

"Why would I care who you are? Stay out of my room!" The guy snaps at him and turns to head back into his room.

"I just thought that since I'm the singer I should say hi at least!" He says back defensively.

That makes the green haired guy stop in his tracks. He stands completely still for a good couple of seconds before he turns around, slowly now and looks at Sanji with one eye twitching slightly tensely.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't have heard you right. What did you just say?" The guy asks him, sounding a lot less angry but certainly no calmer, if anything he sounds tenser.

"I… I auditioned today, signed a contract and everything. I'm the new singer." He answers warily.

The green haired guy's entire face seems to twitch.

"NAMI! GET YOUR ASS UP HERE YOU CONNIVING WITCH!" The guy screams at the top of his lungs, as he thunders down the stairs onto the floor below.

"OI! ASSHOLE! Don't shout for her like that! Have some manners!" Sanji snaps reflexively, chasing after the guy. Nami might be a little underhanded from what Sanji's seen of her but it's no reason to scream like that or to insult her so!

"You stay out of this swirl-face!" The guy snarls, jabbing a finger in his direction.

"Not if you're gonna act like a psycho, you Neanderthal!" he argues back, smacking the finger out of his face. The other guy turns and glares up at him from where Sanji stands on the last few steps before the floor below.

"Look, get your shit and go because there 'aint no singing job here. If that witch tricked you then that's your fault but get your scrawny ass out!" the guy orders him.

"Oh, there's a job. Don't you go anywhere Sanji, I've got your contract safe and sound." Nami says silkily as she makes her way around the corner.

"I don't _need_ a singer! I've got this under control, we're _fine_. Tear up that contract now!" the guy shouts, his fists clenching tightly at his sides.

"Not your call Zoro, it's mine and Luffy's. Deal with it." Nami states firmly, stepping up to Zoro and standing her ground.

"Why you!" Zoro snaps, grabbing the front of her shirt.

Now, Sanji's not known for his self-restraint, however his ability to let shit slide rapidly approaches zero when someone threatens a woman in his presence. So he regrets nothing and he snaps his foot right through Zoro's wrist, breaking his hold on Nami. He leaps between the two of them and shoves the other guy back with his foot.

"Don't you dare grab her like that!" He shouts protectively.

"You stay out of this!" The green haired guy yells at him. Well, if this is going to get into a screaming match Sanji would bet any amount of money that he can scream louder, he's not met anyone yet that can force more power out of their lungs than he can.

"Over my dead BODY!" He shouts back, louder than Zoro.

"THAT CAN BE ARRANGED!" The manhandling ape yells back, upping the volume.

"TRY ME, COWARD!" He bellows even louder again.

Instead of fighting verbally though this guy, probably sensing that he's outmatched, simply swings for Sanji's face with his fist. Sanji brings his leg up to block and then kicks out, shoving the guy firmly into his range. He grew up in a bar for god sake, he's been fighting almost his entire life.

The asshole apparently doesn't know when he's beat though and lunges for him again. This time it's a little quicker and he manages to catch Sanji by the collar and slam him into a wall. Sanji grounds himself with one foot and twists the other leg around the guy's arm, snapping his grip and kicking him forcefully into the opposing wall. He flicks a follow up kick out but his attacker ducks and throws a punch which Sanji manages to dodge.

Going for broke the guy flings himself at Sanji and it's only when Sanji has sidestepped that he realises it was a trick as the punk-haired bastard throws out his arm and clotheslines Sanji to the ground. Then it becomes a grappling match of punches, knees and swearing.

A pair of hands rip the other guy up off of him and another pair haul Sanji back on his ass so that he doesn't kick the savage dick in the face. It's Franky who's got him in an arm lock and Luffy and Usopp who are holding Zoro back.

"I'm good, I'm good." He mutters, relaxing his arm so that Franky lets him go. He dusts off his shirt and scowls at the other guy. His opponent however seems to have no such sensible qualms and is snarling at the drummer. The rest of the band has appeared on the floor now, all watching the conflict with wide worried eyes.

"-the hell are you doing?! Bringing in this psychopath, we don't need him! I hate him!" Zoro snarls at Luffy.

"We need him and he's not going anywhere, I've made my decision." Luffy says seriously. The green haired bastard snatches his arm back and turns to face Luffy full on.

"Why?!" he demands. Sanji might be wrong but he could swear that the guy almost sounds a little wounded.

"It's best." Luffy nods.

"Usopp, you're in on this too? How could you?!" he asks, turning to the long nosed keyboard player. Usopp looks hugely uncomfortable and just averts his eyes.

"Well fuck all of you." Zoro snarls and storms off down the stairs. Usopp tries to go after him but Luffy holds him back and shakes his head.

"So much for good first impressions." Sanji mutters, feeling his cheeks flush. It's hardly the great first impression that he wanted to give his new bandmates, it doesn't exactly paint him as easy to get along with.

"I've never seen anyone give Zoro back as good as they got, it was rather interesting to see." Robin muses from the bannister, her smile coy and catlike.

"Well he grabbed Nami, I had to intervene." Sanji frowns, straightening his shirt out.

"Zoro's all bark and no bite, he'd never hurt me. He was just showing me how pissed off he was. Bastard." Nami scowls, glaring down the stairs that Zoro left through.

"That's still not okay. Are you alright?" Sanji asks worriedly as he looks over at Nami.

"I'm fine. Still… it's going to be interesting for Zoro to deal with you. When we've tried to hire singers before he's just intimidated the shit out of them or deliberately been impossible to work with, none of them have even got through the audition. But you… I think you could have survived that. Anyway, you're not going anywhere my dear, and Zoro's just going to have to deal with that." Nami grins, patting Sanji's cheek and making his heart flutter.

She flashes him a sneaky grin and returns to her room, the rest of the band going their separate ways. The fluttering in Sanji's chest fades leaving him only with the dead certainty that he loathes this Zoro guy and he's probably hate his shitty guts until the day he dies.

A/N: Songs aren't mine but belong to Ludo and are (in order) "Lake Pontchartrain" and "Hum Along"


	2. Chapter 2

Sanji's favourite show when he was a little kid was Scooby Doo. He liked solving mysteries and (as he grew up a little) thought the best thing ever would be to do so with two lovely ladies like Velma and Daphne by his side. Unfortunately everyone has to grow up sooner or later but it doesn't mean that Sanji doesn't enjoy the opportunity to do a little detective work now and then.

He had two mysteries to solve; firstly, who was the previous singer and why did she leave on such bad terms? And secondly (though he accepts that this one may never be solved) why is Zoro such a bastard?

To keep him occupied whilst he sleuths he's cycling through the entire recorded body of the band's work on his phone, Chopper stopped by not long after his altercation with Zoro to give him the files. It seems that the incredibly shy kid is the one responsible for recording all of their songs. He seems to be the keeper of the written versions too as he'd dropped those off. Most of their stuff seems to be in slightly smudged handwriting, and with his awesome detective powers works out that whoever wrote most of this stuff down is left handed from the smudges.

There do seem to be a few other people's handwriting in there too, some are just notes and linger near their own music. The scratchy handwriting that's near the bass music sheets must be Franky's and the spidery notes are probably Brook's. There seems to be handwriting that's flowing, a strong contrast to the main writing as it's elegant and all in black ink, this writing seems to mainly serve to cross out or alter the original writing underneath it. He sqints through it and thinks that he likes the original wording more often than he likes the corrections. He'd bet anything that the flowing black writing belongs to the violent and overdramatic punk-haired bastard.

As usual he's run through the lyrics on the paper whilst listening, just to make sure he has the words right. He only really needs to do that the once though so now he's free to do other things as he just listens and lets the words and melodies sink nicely into his head while he's being sneaky.

He starts as all good detectives who aren't getting paid for their work do, on Google, shortly followed by Wikipedia. It wasn't hard to backtrack through the article on The Strawhats to their previous band, Going Merry. After briefly wondering how these guys can come up with the oddest fucking names ever he delves into the article.

Going Merry split up on November 11th 2011 during a gig at Loguetown not long before they were scheduled to start performing along the Grand Line. The band's lead singer Baby left after a violent altercation with the lead guitarist Roronoa Zoro which also marked the end of their relationship. [1]

Sanji's eyebrows raise. So what then, Zoro was in a relationship with the last singer? No wonder he was tetchy about the job then. Curiously Sanji clicks on the link in the article and finds youtube opening up in a video. He unplugs himself from the band's music and instead plugs himself into his laptop, wary that youtube doesn't decide to have the volume cranked up and blast his eardrums out of his head- he hates it when that happens.

The video itself is of a pretty shitty quality, clearly taken on someone's phone. It looks to be shot in some kind of bar, pointing to the stage. He already recognises figures of his new bandmates, they're a pretty odd looking bunch after all. He can't quite place the bar and he knows most of them in the area, but it does look familiar. The video cuts into halfway through the dark haired female singer speaking into the mic on stage.

"-this will be our last performance and-" She says and turns to Zoro. The slightly younger but still green-haired guitarist shakes his head vehemently and slides a white guitar over his head, handing it off to a wide eyed Franky.

Zoro grabs her arm and pulls her back away from the mic slightly. That action alone raises Sanji's hackles, it's too much like Zoro manhandling Nami earlier, that brute.

He's talking urgently to the dark haired singer but Sanji simply can't make out what either of them are saying. He can see that Zoro is practically begging her though, his body language and his face all broadcast an air of "please no" to the world. The dark haired woman looks angrier and angrier by the second though and steps forward, jabbing the green haired guy in the chest forcefully. Zoro steps back with his eyes shut while she shouts something unclear at him.

"Choose!" He manages to make out her saying, if only for the hush it causes to ripple through the crowd in the video.

She snarls something else angrily that Sanji can't catch, though she's gesturing to the other band members. Zoro reaches for her, grabbing her arm and pulling her close, but she shoves him back off of her. The two stare at each other for a second or two before Zoro shakes his head.

There's a beat before the singer's face goes from shocked to furiously angry. She moves in a blur, then there's a loud crack and Zoro's head snaps to the side, his body bending over towards the crowd. Zoro's hand is at his face and from the way that the singer is standing Sanji can tell that she just slapped him as hard as she possibly could.

Sanji's eyes are about ready to pop out of his head. Talk about a messy public breakup. Zoro's eyes flicker open and he pulls his hand from his face to show a decent stream of blood running from his nose. Unevenly he stands up and the singer is about to go for him again when Nami and Robin fling themselves at her, restraining her as much as they can. Zoro pulls her free through, but by this time the singer is crying herself and she flees from the stage with Zoro hot on her heels. Reflexively Sanji feels the corners of his mouth tug up in a smug grin, serves that idiot right for treating a lady like that, she deserves better than him.

Sanji hums in thought. So Zoro's last relationship crashed and burned in front of everyone then? No wonder Zoro is such a miserable bastard. What must he have done to push that poor woman so far as to make her slap him so hard? What had Zoro said to her before then that upset the lovely lady so much? It sounded like the argument revolved around the band, but their relationship must have been pretty poor for her to leave him like that.

What was her name again anyway? He clicks back to Wikipedia and goes through to her page. He learns that her name is Baby, it appears to be a stage name but her real one isn't listed. As soon as Sanji sees a proper picture of her, rather than some shitty grainy video, he recognises her.

It's Baby from the band Baby 5, he knows loads of her songs, and they're forever on the radio. She's pretty famous, and gorgeous too. Her long flowing dark hair, her curvy yet slender frame and long legs that go on for days. She's got a cute little pout on her gorgeous painted lips and her big chocolaty eyes just beckon Sanji to fall right in. His mouth is actually watering at the sight of her. How on earth did Zoro manage to date such a gorgeous babe?

Still, he finds himself grinning, the guitarist must be pretty butthurt that she dumped him in front of everyone and then went on to be wildly successful without him. It's pretty funny actually. He smirks and rewinds that video to the part where Zoro got slapped again. He chuckles a little to himself at seeing the ungrateful moron get a little comeuppance.

Still, it wasn't as if he was in danger of Sanji doing the same to him, so he'd just have to get over it. After all, it was hardly like he was going to sleep with the green headed freak was it? That snarling, overly aggressive, violent asshole wasn't exactly Sanji's type. It seems like the rest of the band are a bit used to tiptoeing around him as well from how they acted and what they said. Well, Zoro was in for a shock if he thought he could get away with that shit with him wasn't he? Man, is he ever looking forward to the opportunity to throw that in Zoro's stupid face.

He laughs a little to himself and shuts his laptop. He stands up, tucks his ipod with the band's songs on in his pocket and stretches out his back. After that Sanji tucks his chair back under his desk and jogs down the stairs, he's a little hungry for dinner and he should really be sociable with his new bandmates.

With a little more sleuthing he manages to find the kitchen. Like the rest of the building it's huge, the worksurfaces all appear to be granite at first chance and he can already see all of the knives stuck to a magnetic strip on the wall. Pots and pans hang from a rack overhead and the silver extractor hood gleams with a clean brushed metal finish. There's just so much space in comparison to his tiny little kitchen at the Baratie which could fit him and Zeff in but no one else.

In the other half of the room is a huge long oak table with plenty of chairs set around it and on one of them sits one long-nosed keyboard player. The musician is looking a little glum and is idly rolling his soda bottle around on its base at the edge. He seems to hear Sanji come in though and looks over to him, he puts on a small smile but Sanji can tell that something is obviously still bugging him.

"Hey." Usopp greets him.

"Hey." Sanji answers back, making his way into the room. The kitchen is amazing and Sanji really can't wait to use it, but right now Usopp is a little more interesting.

"Sorry about Zoro. He's usually a lot nicer than that. Your job is just a bit of a sore subject is all, it's not personal." Usopp apologises in his friend's place.

"Yeah, I would probably be pretty pissy about it if my ex used to have that job and then humiliated me publicly like that." Sanji snorts, coming closer to Usopp.

The keyboard player's face is surprised for a second before fading to a muted irritation. He rights the bottle in his hands, his long fingers tightening on it.

"Not everything you read on the internet is entirely right you know." He points out.

"So," Sanji shrugs, pulling out a chair at the table and sitting down opposite the younger guy, "educate me."

Usopp looks uncomfortable and seems hesitant to talk about it but Sanji just fixes him with an expectant look. If the longnose wants him to believe that Zoro is more than the jerk that he seems to be, he'd better get some back story here.

"Look, for the record I think you're great and you frankly seem to be a better singer than her and I think you should keep the job, no matter what Zoro says." Usopp says, looking him in the eye with a weak smile. Sanji raises an eyebrow and waits for the inevitable 'but' to follow a sentence that nice and conciliatory.

"But don't ever say what you just did to Zoro. He and Baby started dating when they were fourteen and only broke up… well, when Zoro was only just nineteen. She wasn't exactly good for him, it all started so nicely and I liked her at first. But… well, she was messed up to say the least and not exactly nice to him. But Zoro is as loyal as they come, he never stopped loving her. If you use that against him then this won't work." Usopp sighs.

Sanji considers that, it must be a pretty sucky situation. Still it's hardly his fault is it?

"He's a jerk though." Sanji points out accurately.

"He's a generous loving softie… wrapped in an irritable, moody, jerk. He's complex. Just… try not to piss him off so much and I'm sure he'll take to you just fine in his own time." Usopp laughs, standing up from the table. The long nose drains the last of his soda and throws it into the recycling with surprisingly perfect aim.

"What's so fragile about this relationship of his that makes you all tiptoe around him like that? From where I'm sitting it looks like none of you stand up to him. Why should I do the same?" Sanji challenges.

"You'd understand if you had seen how he was with her." The other guy says frustratedly.

"Well that ship's quite clearly sailed. Look, lots of people have had bad relationships it's not like- what are you doing?" He questions as halfway through his sentence the other guy had suddenly started rummaging in his bag on the next chair for something.

With an "ah hah!" he pulls out his phone and starts loading up a video. Sanji doesn't have time for shitty phone speakers and takes the headphones that live pretty much perpetually around his neck and plugs them in and waits as the video loads, he's wondering what on earth it could be that Usopp is going to show him that'll so change his mind. The video starts playing, it's clearly home shot, though the sound is remarkably good.

In the centre of the shot is Zoro, his eyes shut, playing a white acoustic guitar. The melody is slow and sweet, and a little sad perhaps. He tries to place how old Zoro is there, from what Usopp said he'd guess that he must be only about fourteen. His face is a little smoother, a little less angular, and he looks… more innocent perhaps. Though his hair is still that stupid moss green, Sanji finds himself grinning to himself and wondering just how long it's been that colour.

A young girl walks into the shot from around the camera and sits next to him, she opens her mouth and starts to sing a bittersweet song. Sanji immediately recognises her as Baby, though she too looks much younger. She looks… fragile somehow, as if something is only just holding her together and her big brown eyes are uncertain. She closes them though as she sings.

_"When I was younger, I saw my daddy cry_

_And curse at the wind_

_He broke his own heart and I watched_

_As he tried to reassemble it_

_And my momma swore that_

_She would never let herself forget_

_And that was the day that I promised_

_I'd never sing of love if it does not exist"_

Zoro's eyes open then, and as he looks at the younger Baby with her curled dark hair hanging in her face, something pure and oh so earnest shows in his expression. Baby cracks her eyes open then, smiles at him and starts the chorus of her song.

_"But darling, you are the only exception_

_You are the only exception_

_You are the only exception_

_You are the only exception"_

Zoro's gaze on her his unwavering, never looking down at his confident hands on the guitar strings, instead he just has a small smile on his face as he watches her.

_"Maybe I know, somewhere deep in my soul_

_That love never lasts_

_And we've got to find other ways to make it alone_

_Or keep a straight face_

_And I've always lived like this_

_Keeping a comfortable distance_

_And up until now I had sworn to myself that I'm content with loneliness_

_Because none of it was ever worth the risk"_

Baby's tone becomes more melancholy the more that she sings. From a technical point of view Sanji would say that she's inexperienced and that the mood is flattening her pitch, but every time she opens her eyes and sees Zoro her skill level jumps and the mood picks up.

_"But you are the only exception_

_You are the only exception_

_You are the only exception_

_You are the only exception_

_I've got a tight grip on reality_

_But I can't let go of what's in front of me here_

_I know you're leaving in the morning when you wake up_

_Leave me with some kind of proof, it's not a dream, oh"_

Every word that she sings is intense, her gaze on Zoro powerful and strong. The song is undeniably being sung to him. She begins the chorus again, and with every repetition of it Sanji finds part of the malice that he holds for Zoro receding a little.

_"You are the only exception_

_You are the only exception_

_You are the only exception_

_You are the only exception_

_You are the only exception_

_You are the only exception_

_You are the only exception_

_You are the only exception_

_And I'm on my way to believing_

_Oh, and I'm on my way to believing"_

By the time the song has come to an end Sanji resolves completely to bite his tongue around Zoro. The guitarist was angry at him sure, but that's because the expression of love and adoration that the two of them once had in this very video broke and died, eventually ending with that violent slap on stage. It seems like he's just having… a hard time letting go of that.

Sanji pouts and wonders if Usopp might be right, if perhaps he should keep what he learnt to himself. He can't imagine what a five year long relationship might feel like. Oh, he's had relationships before but his longest ever was six months and he took at least that long again to get over the girl. So if that bastard only just lost her last year then he supposes he might still be torn up about it, and after five years Sanji imagines that he might have forgotten what it was like to be alone, that'd be rough.

Sure, bringing it up would certainly be a sure fire way of cutting the asshole down to size but did he really want to do that? Did he want to be that guy? Besides, as Usopp pointed out, he only knows what he read online. No, maybe he should be a little more magnanimous than that and keep what he read to himself. He wants to take the guy down a peg for daring to upset poor Nami, he doesn't want to stomp all over the guy's heart for it.

"Fine," He grouses as he pulls his headphone jack out, "I won't say anything. But I'm still not about to let him walk all over me."

"No one said you had to do that." Usopp answers, putting his phone back into his oversized bag.

Sanji grumbles to himself, pissed off about his good heart and decides to start cooking. Usopp leaves him to it. He looks in the fridge and rapidly surmises that not much cooking goes on in this house. Sanji doesn't know what kind of food his new bandmates might like, not that he'd thought to ask the keyboard player before he left. But either way there isn't enough of any one thing to just make one dish for everyone.

He takes his own phone with the band's music on and plugs himself back in, he wants to be as familiar as possible with their music and if he can memorise and cook at the same time, all the better. He takes his time a little and with the ingredients that he manages to rustle up from the fridge he makes a selection of food, both meat and non, spicy and creamy, a whole range.

He'd never really considered doing cooking for a living as he always intended on working at the Baratie in order to pay Zeff back for taking him in. He still enjoyed cooking though and though he was mainly self-taught he was incredibly good. It made his old man happy and it was the only way that he complied with his doctor's prescription on diet after he lost his leg, the old man had to be careful not to eat too sweet and risk infection. It wasn't really a risk for long but Sanji had kept it up since then, especially after he found out that girls are rather charmed by a man who can cook.

It's not long before the others all smell the food that he's making and come to join him in the grand sweeping kitchen with its big dining table, the one that he'd sat at with Usopp earlier. All of them come except for Zoro. He doesn't know if the guitarist is in the house still or not and frankly he'd rather not see the other man at all, it's far easier to be noble and restrained when not faced with temptation to be a complete bastard. He could easily keep to his self-made agreement not to bring up Zoro's shitty relationship issues if he never had to speak to him.

None of the rest of the band bring up the fight at all and instead just ask him questions about where he learnt to cook and what he's making. Sanji alters recipes at his lady's requests, making things warmer or milder as they please and completely ignoring the requests of the others, which seems to please Nami even more!

The band helps themselves to food when it's all done and on the table. Luffy is positively vacuuming up every single morsel there is that's not already on someone else's plate, and that restraint is only due to a particularly threatening look that the lovely Nami gives their drummer.

"Would you be willing to cook like this for us all the time?" Nami asks looking at him curiously, leaning back in her seat and rubbing her perfect stomach in satisfaction.

"For you? Of course my angel!" Sanji beams happily at her from his seat.

"Well usually everyone except Luffy has to have a job, usually part time to fit around the band, but just something to bring a little money in. But if you cook for us like this every night I'll pay you for the service instead." Nami says thoughtfully.

"I agree, it would be far more useful. Assuming that you agree Sanji." Robin smiles at him.

"Of course!" he exclaims delightedly.

"I'll draw you up a contract." Nami nods, suddenly business-like.

"Read it this time." Franky mutters to him.

"I have to say Nami, in all the years I've known you this is the first time that I've heard you offer to pay someone!" Brook trills with laughter.

"You're brave, Brook." Usopp says under his breath as Nami shoots Brook a death glare that could melt the musician's skin from his bones.

"More of Sanji's food! Yay!" Luffy laughs overjoyed, apparently oblivious to Brook's near death transgression.

"So you didn't hire us a singer after all, you hired us a cook. You should have said Nami." A deep voice from behind Sanji says.

He turns his head tensely and looks up to see the smug looking green haired guitarist leaning against the door frame. Sanji clamps his jaw shut to avoid saying all of the nasty things that he promised himself he wouldn't say, just being there and looking smug isn't grounds to be a complete dick to him.

"Play nice. I'll go write that contract. Franky, Brook, you wash up." Nami orders, shooting a look between the two of them and standing up to leave with Robin.

"But why do we-" Franky begins with a frown.

"I'm sorry, did that sound like a question?" Nami scowls over her shoulder at them. The men all mutter but stay more or less silent.

"I thought not." Nami nods and heads out of the room.

"You ate everything again Luffy?" Zoro sighs, looking over the table and totally ignoring Sanji.

"You should have been here." Luffy says around the last bread roll in his impressively stretchy mouth. Sanji would swear that he was secretly a hamster with cheek pouches and all with the amount of food the kid could stuff in his face.

"I'll make you something, since I'm so incredibly forgiving and generous." Sanji announces as he takes his own empty plate to the sink. He could take this opportunity to be nice and see if the green haired, muscle clad, scowling mother fucker over there was really so sweet inside. Alternatively, he could just be an aggressive moron who can just play a nice sweet song on a guitar and sing okay.

"What are you still doing here anyway?" Zoro challenges from behind him. Sanji puts another tally into the 'total dick' column in his mind, leaving the one headed 'secretly sweet' with one mere point earned from that video.

Despite his best intentions Sanji feels his hackles rise and he turns on his heel to scowl back at the unimpressed looking guitarist.

"What, you think I'd leave just because you threw a hissy fit? Think again, idiot." He shoots back.

"Uh, hey, you know what? I think we'll just clean up later. You know, if there's still any unbroken plates left." Franky announces from the table and hightails it with Brook and the others. Shit is no one willing to stand up to Zoro but him?

"I figured you'd have been bright enough to realise that you'd just see sense and go home." The other guy scowls at him.

"Hah. Not really an option, even if you did scare me with your pathetic display of machismo." He snorts, opening the fridge and looking inside.

"Ooh, big words." The other guy says mockingly.

"Need me to spell them out for you?" Sanji snipes back.

Zoro growls, clearly irritated at being out-thought in a fight that doesn't involve fists. The guy leans forward and slams the fridge shut.

"Just. Go. Home." He snaps tetchily.

"I couldn't if I wanted to, so you're just going to have to deal with not getting your own way." Sanji argues back, the words spilling from his mouth before it occurs that this is probably not something he wants to be sharing with that bastard.

It does seem to grab his attention though.

"What do you mean?" Zoro asks him, sounding confused and wary, as if this is some sort of trap.

"My old man kicked me out, I've got nowhere else to go." He admits unhappily, the memory still stinging more than a little. It's not quite sunk in yet, the way that Zeff has thrown him out so callously. It'll probably hit him all in one go later.

"Oh." The green haired guy says quietly, stepping back and looking at him, as if for the first time.

Sanji bristles at that look. He does not need any fucking pity, and certainly not from that guy!

"Don't you look at me like that, you bastard! I don't need your pity!" He snaps, furious at himself for revealing a weakness like that and even angrier at Zoro's condescending pity for poor little abandoned Sanji.

"It's not pity, it's compassion. Stay here if you have to until you find somewhere else, but then you get the fuck out of my hair, out of my house and out of this band. You're not needed, so go." Zoro growls.

That'd almost count as kind if the other man wasn't such a colossal tool about it.

"Not needed? That's not what it sounds like to me." He shoots back, tapping the headphones around his neck.

"What's that supposed to mean?" The other man challenges, his eyes flashing angrily. Sanji grins, he's wounded the other man's stupid pride has he? Too bad.

"Don't get me wrong, you're okay at singing. But you're a guitarist, not a singer. You just don't have the skill to carry a lead singer role." Sanji reasons, trying to be at least vaguely nice in a kinda half assed way.

"And you think you're better than me?" Zoro snorts derisively.

"No, I know I am. You just don't know it because you've never heard me sing." Sanji smirks back cockily.

"That's it, practice, tonight. I'll hand you your ass and then you can get out of my house." Zoro snarls in his face, leaning all into Sanji's personal space in a way that's clearly meant to intimidate him. It's not going to work though. Sanji just leans right back into Zoro's.

"I look forward to it. Make your own damn dinner, but don't have too much, cause you'll be eating those words later." He purrs threateningly into Zoro's ear. And then, because he's a mature adult, stalks off after deliberately smacking his shoulder into Zoro's.

It's barely an hour until Zoro's fed himself and somehow convinced everyone else into agreeing to a practice session. When Robin comes to get him Zoro is off somewhere arguing with Nami (or so Robin tells him), so he has a little bit of time to see the studio in the basement before the aggressive muscle head comes back.

In the basement of their house is the studio. It's split into two rooms, the first room that Sanji comes to seems to be Chopper's recording room. It's full of wide panels of sliders and dials that probably do incomprehensible things to sound that Sanji could probably spend a lifetime on and still not know his way around it. There's a fancy apple computer that Chopper is sitting at, typing at a furious pace.

In front of all of these panels is a big glass window, through it, though silent, he can see the rest of the band. Just as Robin said he can see Zoro and Nami arguing in the middle of the room, Nami is waggling her finger in a scolding manner in Zoro's face. Zoro is scowling at her as if he hopes that doing it enough will make her catch fire. Sanji has his doubts about that super power.

"Oh! Sanji! Come here, come here." Chopper says beckoning him over. Sanji walks towards the kid, his eyes still on the argument in the recording studio itself.

"It might take a little time for me to work out what to do with your voice with recording, Zoro's sometimes requires a little smoothing out. I just want you to be sure to stand where you should with the mic, you never know when you're going to get a perfect run through that I'll want to use." Chopper informs him from his seat.

"No problem, so what... You just stitch together takes that you think are good for the final track?" he asks curiously.

"I prefer to get a solid run through all recorded at once, but if there's a really nice bit then yes, I'll take it." the brown haired kid smiles.

"Huh." Sanji says blankly, he doesn't really have anything to say to that. Whilst he was familiar with the audio equipment at the Baratie he didn't really understand the inner workings of it, how it seemed that you could gut music and almost stitch it back together however you liked, it was odd to him. And this set up of Chopper's… well, that is even more foreign to him.

"The system is actually incredibly clever, as soon as anyone comes through the door it starts recording, so we never miss a thing." Robin smiles encouragingly at the younger boy.

"Even when I'm not here I can still catch your performances." The brown haired boy agrees happily.

"Yeah, speaking of, shouldn't you be in school or something?" Sanji frowns at the kid.

Chopper looks up at him with a confused frown.

"It's… nine pm, on a Saturday." He says slowly.

"I didn't mean this second, just… in general." Sanji sighs, rolling his eyes.

"Well, I do go to school. I'm enrolled at the university in the city, but it's a pretty flexible schedule." The kid nods.

That makes Sanji's eyes widen. How old is this kid? He looks like he's about thirteen or fourteen at most, he's so little that his messy brown hair barely comes up to Sanji's ribs.

"Geez, how old are you? I thought you were like… thirteen." He laughs surprised.

"I'm thirteen and a half!" Chopper blushes, swinging his legs on his seat. His feet don't even touch the floor.

"Chopper is a bit of a prodigy, we're lucky to have him." Robin smiles and runs her hand through his messy brown curls.

Sanji wants to ask where Chopper's parents are, he wants to ask him if they're okay with him living here. But he doesn't. He closes his mouth. He knows full well that you don't get to that age without having parents around if you don't have a damn good reason. Chopper's parents could have been awful, or Chopper could have made himself legally an adult and moved out to go to university, or they could be dead. The same answer comes up to any of those situations though, it's none of his business.

"Well alright. So what do you need me to do then maestro?" He asks with a grin, pointing to the window which shows the next room. Through it he can see that whatever argument was going on between Zoro and Nami has finished and Zoro is now flopped over in a giant bean bag with what looks suspiciously like a sulky expression on his face. Instead Nami is now punching Luffy in the head, he almost certainly deserves it.

"See that there are two microphones set up at the front of the room? One near Zoro and one on the left?" Chopper says, pointing at it.

"Yeah." Sanji nods.

"Well that left one is yours. Having listened to you I don't think I'll have to edit too much, though I might have to dial in the sensitivity of the mic as you seem to have a pretty powerful set of lungs on you." Chopper muses, fiddling with a dial and squinting at the screen.

"And I'll be filming too, I almost always film practices if I'm not playing. So come on Sanji, let's get started." Robin says, picking up an expensive looking camera off of the desk and linking her arm with Sanji's.

Whilst Sanji melts at her lovely touch she takes him into the next room. He ignores Zoro's challenging stare and instead takes a look around the place. Luffy is happily drumming away to himself, though relatively quietly it must be said.

The room is plush, the walls are softly carpeted, probably as the bare concrete basement walls would make the sound bounce too much. The carpet underfoot is long and comfy, with various homey rugs scattered about. There are large soft armchairs about the place, including the beanbag that Zoro was previously slouched in. Instruments are set up and look perpetually ready to be played.

Robin leaves his side, curling up in a large dark armchair at the front of the room and flicks open her camera. Zoro is standing by his microphone, his gaze challenging. Sanji rolls his eyes and ignores him, heading to the microphone on the left that Chopper pointed out to him earlier. He's not going to get into some petty bickering match now, he's going to let his voice and his talent do the talking here, regardless of what the green haired idiot thinks.

"Warm up first, you can have your little grudge match later, Zoro." Nami sighs and exits the room, shutting the door behind her and settling into a seat by Chopper's side.

Zoro's awareness of him seems to fall away and Sanji watches, but tries not to look to interested, as Zoro slides a black and red electric over his head. The guitarist cracks his neck and turns his gaze to Usopp.

"Muse? As a warm up?" Usopp suggests. Zoro's answering grin is answer enough. Usopp starts playing the keyboard part to the intro of the song, one that Sanji instantly recognises of course.

"I know them. That Bellamy guy is a psycho but he's got a good voice." Sanji says remembering the blonde haired maniac.

"Think you're better than him too?" Zoro snorts, clearly not expecting Sanji to answer.

Sanji glowers and remembers to let his voice do all the arguing it needs to for him. He flicks his eyes to the left, his mic is close enough for Chopper to be happy enough. He shuts his eyes and faces in the direction of the microphone. He lets his voice become soft and sweet, he starts quiet too, knowing just how much power he's wanting to kick into the song and he wants the difference to be as obvious as possible. Zoro will be eating his words in no time.

_"Birds flying high_

_You know how I feel_

_Sun in the sky_

_You know how I feel_

_Reeds driftin' on by_

_You know how I feel_

_It's a new dawn_

_It's a new day_

_It's a new life_

_For me_

_And I'm feeling good"_

Zoro's guitar kicks in then, startling Sanji's eyes open. The guitarist's dark eyes are challenging, he clearly doesn't think that Sanji can pull the whole song off. Hah, idiot. He smirks and flips Zoro off before turning back the right way and letting a little more of his power out with each passing line.

_"Fish in the sea_

_You know how I feel_

_River running free_

_You know how I feel_

_Blossom in the trees_

_You know how I feel_

_It's a new dawn_

_It's a new day_

_It's a new life_

_For me_

_And I'm feeling good"_

He controls his breathing and resists the temptation to look at Zoro again. The man's guitar is spot on though, and he keeps in time perfectly with the more fiddly guitar riffs that he remembers seeing the guitarist sweat over when Bellamy and his band performed at the Baratie some years ago.

He drops his voice and lets the lower end of his register show off a little before switching up higher and then kicking the power in his voice up even higher with the next verse.

_"Dragonfly out in the sun_

_You know what I mean, don't you know_

_Butterflies all out havin' fun_

_You know what I mean_

_Sleep in peace when day is done_

_And this old world is a new world_

_And a bold world_

_For me"_

Sanji decides to just fuck it and let his voice do what it wants, his best work often happens when he's having more fun with what he does. Zeff used to bitch if he let loose too much, he'd snap at Sanji and tell him he made the glasses on the other side of the bar rattle and break. But there aren't any glasses in here and he really wants to put Zoro in his place, so to hell with it.

_"Stars when you shine_

_You know how I feel_

_Scent of the pine_

_You know how I feel_

_Yeah, freedom is mine_

_And you know how I feel"_

He finishes letting his range really flex as much as it can. This isn't really a warm up song, and if he was being sensible he wouldn't launch into this, but to hell with it.

_"It's a new dawn_

_It's a new day_

_It's a new life_

_For me_

_And I'm feeling good"_

With the last note seeming to hang in the air for a good few seconds after it's left his mouth Sanji opens his eyes and lets his gaze slide over to Zoro.

The guitarist is no longer looking at him like he's something the cat dragged in, but he doesn't exactly look impressed either.

"Warm enough yet, moss head? Or do I have to wait around for you all night?" He smirks at the guitarist.

"We'll see how cocky you are when you have to sing songs that you've not sung a thousand times." The guitarist answers back. As if Sanji has just spent years of his life practicing that one song in case he was to join a band and have it suggested by someone else just to one up someone he hadn't met yet. A likely plan.

"He knows all of our songs by now! He can learn them just like that!" Luffy chirps happily from the drum kit, smacking a drum for emphasis.

"Bullshit." Zoro answers back with a frown.

"It's true, he learnt Lake Pontchartrain in like… two listens." Usopp agrees with a nod.

Zoro looks understandably dubious, his eyes flicking from him to Usopp and back again.

"Liar." Zoro mutters, turning back to his own microphone.

"It's true!" Usopp protests, wide eyed and indignant.

"Stop bickering children. We're gonna run through some usual set stuff. Let's go for 'better open the door' to begin, are you okay with that Sanji?" Nami asks him, from the other side of the glass. Her voice is being pumped into the room from the other side, there must be a button for that or something.

"Of course, my goddess!" He exclaims happily, earning him a scowl of contempt from the green haired idiot.

"Zoro, remember that you're only singing support this time. Don't just leap into the song, got it?" Nami instructs, her voice coming from above them.

Zoro leans into his own microphone, his lips almost touching it. He looks at Nami as he does so and then speaks, deep and slow.

"Bite me, witch." He says simply.

Sanji's draw drops at the utter rudeness of the asshole's words. He's seriously considering rearranging the bastard's face when Nami's voice cuts in again.

"I'm sorry Zoro, I couldn't hear you over the sound of how much money you owe me? Could you say that again?" Nami says innocently, making Robin giggle from her seat.

Zoro grinds his teeth but keeps his mouth shut, though his look at Nami through the window is positively murderous.

"I thought so." Nami says and cuts off again.

Luffy laughs loudly at Zoro's discomfort and Sanji allows himself a quiet snigger as well, Zoro's indignant glare only makes it funnier and Sanji's snickering turns into full on laughter. The crazed drummer counts them in and as one the others all launch into their song. He doesn't come in right away but for a split second he'd a little intimidated, the sound is so full on that part of him wonders if he doesn't belong in this band.

He shakes off his doubts, there just isn't time for them, and starts to sing. He knows the words of course, he has learnt the song. He closes his eyes and lets them come to him, this song is a little less weird than the rest, though still pretty crazy.

_"You better open the door before I take a hammer to the walls around it._

_I cannot let you inside my cell for fear I'll sink the ship and drag us both down."_

Zoro cuts in then, singing along with him for the chorus. Or that's what he's supposed to be doing anyway. What he actually seems to be doing is trying to overpower Sanji vocally, and like hell is he going to let that happen.

The two of them commence what feels like a vocal arms race with Sanji using his greater power and range to try to take control back and Zoro just using sheer bloody-mindedness to force him back.

They only get about halfway through the song before Nami shouts at them to stop, leaving him and Zoro glaring at each other fiercely.

"What's the matter cook? Can't keep up?" Zoro snarls at him.

"I'm not a cook! And I'm doing just fine, if you stopped screeching all over the place trying to shove me out then we wouldn't have a problem here!" He growls back angrily.

"Well Nami's paying you to cook, and that seems to be the only thing you're halfway decent at, cook. And you're the one flailing around with no control, not me!" Zoro argues nastily, stepping towards Sanji and trying to get into his space.

Sanji is about to come back with a particularly cutting remark that would surely get the wind out of Zoro's sails, he just hasn't quite thought of it yet, when Nami bursts into the room. Zoro doesn't even look but perhaps he should be, she's pulling out a roll of duct tape and marching furiously towards them.

Sanji wonders if she means to tape Zoro's yap shut, a move he'd highly appreciate, but instead she bends down and tapes Zoro's feet to the floor. Before he can even work out what the hell is happening she does it again and again until the guitarist is stuck firmly in place.

"What the HELL are you doing you crazy woman?!" Zoro demands.

"Don't call her that!" Sanji interjects, though he too is wondering what on earth Nami is up to.

"STAY." She orders him, with a look up at him. That freezes Sanji in place, facing Zoro, just as much as the duct tape that she applies to stick him in place does.

"The two of you can't just shout over each other, you need to work in harmony. Emphasis on the harmony part morons. So, you're going to share this microphone and you're going to listen to each other, or else you're going to end up making each other deaf." Nami announces, dropping Zoro's mic stand between them.

"What, no! You- agh!" Zoro exclaims, nearly losing his balance in his stupid attempt to get away.

"Do it. AGAIN!" Nami snaps, strutting out of the room and slamming the door behind her.

Sanji just stands open mouthed and only looks up when he hears Brook and Franky start laughing.

"Shut your traps!" the guitarist yells, making Sanji wince. Nami has a point about them having to scale their voices in or make each other deaf.

"Maybe next Nami will put you both in pointy dunce caps and make you sit in the corner." Franky chuckles to himself, making Brook hoot with laughter.

"Get on with it." Nami's voice cuts in over them.

Zoro scowls and turns back to Sanji, not that he has much choice. The band starts the song from the beginning again and Sanji reels his volume back into normal levels when his part starts.

_"You better open the door before I take a hammer to the walls around it._

_I cannot let you inside my cell for fear I'll sink the ship and drag us both down."_

The chorus, and subsequently Zoro starts. At first the two of them are still shoving each other vocally for power but it's simply too much when they're barely a foot from each other and before the end of the first chorus they've both had to reign it in even more.

_"Our hell ends every weekend_

_But it's all I have to believe in._

_Our hell ends every weekend_

_But it's all I have to believe in."_

The verse starts and Sanji gets to sing alone again, it's certainly better than the first run through.

_"Matt makes his murderous demand: foreign films._

_I take a stand and it's all uphill from here (at least I hope so)._

_Kate claims she can't depend on me for anything and I agree_

_It's crystal clear._

_I reach for the bottle and disappear."_

The chorus kicks up once again but now that they're not trying to outdo one another Sanji can hear the lower ranges in Zoro's voice and the way it seems to reverberate in the other man's chest. Sanji considers this and kicks his own tone up a little higher in his significantly wider register and instantly it sounds better.

_"Our hell ends every weekend_

_But it's all I have to believe in._

_Our hell ends every weekend_

_But it's all I have to believe in."_

When the verse starts once more Sanji finds himself getting more of a feel for the song beyond simply hitting the right notes. He bends it a little to fit his more modified registers and finds that it sounds like it fits a little better.

_"Frank fails to see the humour in my sad attempts at breakdancing_

_in every bar along Lyndale Avenue._

_Liz likes to liquor up my thoughts from the C.C. Club to the Triple Rock_

_There's no escape from the chorus of people screaming:_

_You better open the door before I take a hammer to the walls around it._

_I cannot let you inside my cell for fear I'll sink the ship and drag us both down."_

When the chorus starts again he and the other man are instantly gelling together more, it actually sounds pretty damn good.

_"Our hell ends every weekend_

_But it's all I have to believe in._

_Our hell ends every weekend_

_But it's all I have to believe in."_

Without even saying anything Zoro falls back to allow a delay between their lines, so it sounds like Zoro's voice is echoing his own in a deeper tone. It's… pretty nice, even he has to admit.

_"I'll swim backwards_

_I'll swim backwards_

_I'll swim backwards_

_I'll swim backwards_

_I'll swim backwards_

_I'll swim backwards_

_I'll swim alone the long goodbye._

_You better open the door before I take a hammer to the walls around it._

_I cannot let you inside my cell for fear I'll sink the ship and drag us both down."_

They finish and Sanji instantly wants to back out of Zoro's space, the whole thing feels too intense and weird. Zoro looks like he wants to bolt just as much.

"Goddamn, that was way better." Franky says into the silence of the room.

"Easily better than you and Zoro together." Brook says in agreement.

"Gee, thanks man." Franky mutters irritably.

"You two work together really well! You'll be best friends!" Luffy crows happily from the back of the room.

"Don't just decide something like that, dumbass!" Zoro yells angrily and tries to rip his feet from the floor.

Sanji groans to himself. They might sound alright together when they were singing and co-operating then, but clearly this wasn't going to be easy or seamless in reality. Nami's trick of taping them to the floor could hardly be applied to every situation.

"Zoro, don't you have something to say to Sanji?" Robin enquires from behind her video camera. Sanji had completely forgotten that she was filming at all. Zoro manages to rip his feet from the floor in one big movement. He starts to pull the tape from himself and looks irritably at Sanji.

"You're… not the worst singer I've ever heard." Zoro says grudgingly.

"Wow. I think I'll get that tattooed on me somewhere." Sanji shoots back flatly at the non-compliment.

"I think I've got a pen and a knife if you want a hand with that. Your face would be a good place, can't make it much worse after all." The green haired ass says mockingly.

"CAN IT. Back to practicing! And don't you dare move from that spot Zoro!" Nami shouts over the speaker system.

He and Zoro sigh unhappily, resigned to having to share a microphone as they run through the rest of the songs that Nami specifies. Sanji wonders to himself what on earth he did to deserve such a cruel punishment as having to sing with a brute like this.

Songs this time are "only exception" by Paramore, "Feeling good" by Muse and "Better open the door" by Motion City Soundtrack.


	3. Chapter 3

Sanji finds that he's fitting in nicely to life in the band. Everyone is friendly and he feels really quickly that he's known them for a long time. The others all make an effort to catch him up with information if they're ever recounting a story or anecdote about people or places that Sanji doesn't know.

Everyone, that is, except for Zoro.

Where life with everyone else is smooth and easy life with Zoro is rough and difficult. It seems like the guitarist is deliberately going out of his way to blatantly ignore Sanji or fight with him. Zoro throws him looks of disdain and venom as if Sanji had run over his precious bike or something. Sanji has tried to avoid him, but that doesn't help. He's tried talking to him and that if anything makes it worse.

He'd be okay if Zoro wasn't going out of his way to make his life actively difficult. Zoro can apparently get out of his room through his window and into Sanji's via his by going over the roof. Zoro then decided to shove Sanji's desk chair under the door, climb back out and then lock himself in his room and refuse to help. Franky had to take the door off of its hinges to get him in!

When they practice they don't have any choice but to be close as Nami has permanently removed the other microphone in the studio, much to Chopper's agony, and is making them practice together. She shoves them close together around the same mic and threatens to tape them to the floor if they don't stay there. She's had to tape Zoro again at least once in every practice, the other man apparently can't stand to be near him.

In fairness, her idea is kind of brilliant. When they're so close they simply can't sing over each other and they're instead forced into an uneasy kind of harmony. It sounds better but it still feels forced to Sanji.

He doesn't know how long it'll last but he's just decided that thinking about it is as pointless as trying to argue with the weather. He just has to let it happen and hope that Zoro will wear himself out of his one man hate campaign eventually. It'd probably be over quicker if Sanji could resist fighting with him, but he just can't.

When Monday morning rolls around Sanji has busied himself in the kitchen. He's making breakfast for everyone. Nami really did give him a job to cook for the band and so far he's actually really enjoying it. He's taking requests from everyone bar Zoro, who simply declared that anything Sanji made would be awful anyway and that started a yelling match that made everyone else's ears hurt. Other than Zoro it's… nice.

His mind has always wandered when he does mundane chores, and washing up is no different. He's cleaning up after breakfast and his mind wanders back to the Baratie. He's spent every night since he's been here staring at his phone willing the old man to call or do something to indicate that he misses him, or that he's made a mistake, or even just to apologise for being an ass about it all. But he's heard nothing at all, not from Zeff or from anyone else at the Baratie.

In all honesty he's hurt.

He knows though that Zeff will never come and say anything to him, not now, not now that he's committed himself to avoiding him. So Sanji is going to have to see his old man himself if he wants to ever see him again. He dries his hands on a dish towel and checks his phone once more but there are still no messages. He's still scrolling through his empty messages, refreshing them just in case, when he nearly bumps into Nami in the hallway on his way out.

"Oh! Sanji, sorry about that." She apologises quickly.

"Oh no, I'm sorry! Forgive me my flower!" Sanji pleads for her forgiveness, earning him a small amused smile.

"Well, I wanted to find you anyway, so you saved me a job. Here, take this." Nami says, pressing something into his palm.

Sanji frowns in confusion and opens his hand. In it is a phone, it's an iPhone in fact, a version or two up from his old one. It's fancy and white and feels fresh out of the box.

"For me? Why?" He questions, looking back at her.

"We all have them, or those of us that can be trusted with them anyway. Luffy has something more or less unbreakable and Brook can't cope with smart phones so he's got something old. Franky has an android because if you bring apple devices near him he all but hisses." Nami says rolling her eyes and flipping her hair behind her ear in an irritated huff.

"But Nami, you don't have to. I've already got my own." He says, holding up his older model to prove it. He doesn't want to put her out of her way, not for his sake!

"Don't worry about it, use the new one. It's all paid for and it's got all the things we use to keep our schedule on, it shows when practice is and everything. And I've set you up a twitter account too, it helps to promote the band, something I'm sure you'll take seriously." Nami nods, looking expectantly.

Well, how can he possibly let her down?

"Anything you want Nami-swan!" He coos adoringly at her.

"Great! Put whatever you want up there, we try to make our accounts quite personal. I've already linked your account to all of ours. I'm sure you'll get the hang of it. Anyway, I have to be off." She chirps happily and bounces lusciously out of the house with Sanji staring all the way after her.

Sanji loiters in the hallway for a bit, looking at his new phone. He's never used this twitter thing before, but he knows enough about it to make sense of it. Nami's set him up a name on there SHsanji apparently. Looking through the people that he "follows" it seems like several other band members are on there too, most of them have more or less the same name format of SH and then their name. He scowls as he finds that Zoro has been talking shit about him on this thing but decides to let it go. It's no different from what Zoro's been saying to his face in fairness.

Sanji flicks through Zoro's tweets some more, the other man seems convinced that Sanji is going to quit, or at least that he can make him. He's wrong on both counts of course, but it still riles him nonetheless.

Before he's even finished thinking that thought the overly loud stomping of motorcycle style boots echoes down the stairs. Sanji looks up with a frown, Zoro has a bicycle not a motorbike, those boots are stupidly heavy and unnecessary.

"Nami! Oi, Nami!" Zoro hollers in a most ungentlemanly way as he stomps down the last few steps. Zoro spares him a brief glance, a look that is akin to one someone would give to gum stuck on the underside of their shoe.

"Nami's already left, idiot. You probably kept her waiting too long." Sanji snorts at the idiot's misfortune as he turns to face the idiotic guitarist, pocketing his new phone as he does so.

"What?! But she said five minutes, I'm EARLY!" Zoro squawks indignantly and rushes around looking as if Sanji might be lying and Nami might be hidden around the corner.

"Ah shit, I'm going to be an hour late for work at this rate!" Zoro exclaims unhappily, running for the front door.

"I'll take you." Sanji offers smugly. He knows full well that Zoro can't drive and his only other option aside from the lift he'd clearly been counting on was to bike it to work, something which was at least a 45 minute trip, if not longer. He offers for two reasons, one because he wants to savour the feeling of making Zoro be polite to him, or civil at least to earn his ride, and secondly perhaps if he does prove that he's an okay guy then Zoro will stop hating him so completely.

"Fuck that." Zoro snarls at him over his shoulder and stalks out the door. Sanji scowls and follows him.

"Okay, be like that. I'm only going the same way, a trip that will probably take me less than twenty minutes driving." Sanji sighs innocently as he follows Zoro to the garage and unlocks the driver's side door.

Zoro doesn't say anything for a while but freezes instead. Sanji smirks at him and leans expectantly on his door, waiting for Zoro to crack.

"Okay." Zoro mutters bitterly, stomping and clomping towards Sanji's car in his big heavy boots. Sanji smiles triumphantly and hops in, he doesn't unlock Zoro's door just yet though.

He watches as the green headed guy yanks on his door handle, clearly surprised that it doesn't open. Sanji rolls the window down.

"Say please." He orders smugly.

Zoro gives him a look that suggests very clearly that Zoro would probably rather chop his own dick off than do that. He bites the inside of his cheek, scowls, stomps about for a bit and then returns to the window with the most evil glare Sanji has ever seen.

"Please." the guitarist spits out like the words are poison. Sanji allows himself a smug grin and unlocks the door and turns the engine on.

"Seeing as you're already being an asshole you won't mind if I take my bike in the back either." Zoro adds and picks up his bike, throwing it on the back of Sanji's car. He thinks of the blue machine as his car, but in reality it's technically a truck it's got a flat bed at the back but he only ever used it if Zeff needed him to haul shit around, not something he's likely to be doing much of now, not unless Nami needs him to move something for her lovely self. Though now the back of his truck is filled with bicycle, well, whatever.

Zoro throws himself stroppily into the passenger seat and buckles in, though he tries to sit as far over in his seat as possible, putting as much distance between them as possible. Zoro's acting like he's allergic to Sanji's very presence. He should probably be offended but this is funny as shit to him.

He throws his arm over the back of Zoro's chair as he looks out the back window to reverse and pretends not to notice how Zoro jumps away from him. He turns the vehicle around and speeds off, he doesn't want Zoro to be late, if he is it'll quite spoil his ability to gloat.

"Where's your radio?" Zoro asks after a little while, looking at the crater in Sanji's dashboard that used to be home to the car stereo.

"I ripped it out." Sanji answers distractedly, changing lane and merging into new traffic.

"With what? Your bare hands?! Why?" Zoro asks in shock. Sanji laughs, he didn't actually rip it out with his bare hands, he had attacked the thing with a screwdriver and ripped it out in pieces. Either way the furious removal of the radio had left quite a few gouges in his dashboard.

"Well, I've got a stupidly good memory for music, it's how I've learnt all of your songs so quickly." Sanji begins to explain.

"You don't know all of my songs." Zoro cuts in with a scowl.

"Shut up," Sanji shoots back with a glare, "I only have to hear a piece of music once or twice for it to be stuck in my head forever. Usually that's useful but it's as annoying as hell with radio jingles. I lost my temper and took it out." Sanji answers.

"You're weird." Zoro observes with a squinty look at him. Sanji doesn't have anything else to say to that and just hums one of their songs instead while he focuses on driving. He speeds into the city, slipping in and out of traffic like a pro and only slows a little when he gets onto the city itself. He doesn't know exactly where Zoro works.

"It's fourth and Blue." Zoro says, as if reading his mind.

"Hey, the Baratie is on sixth and blue, that's where I'm going." Sanji remarks in surprise. Zoro works only two blocks away from where Sanj's lived for almost his entire life. He's probably passed Zoro on the street a hundred times without realising it!

"You going back home to ask your old man to take you back in?" Zoro asks, his voice gentle and curious. Now that riles Sanji right up. That gentle pitying tone getting under his skin so much more than the anger or the passive aggressive shit Zoro's been pulling.

"No!" he snaps back curtly, his fingernails biting into the steering wheel.

"Why are you going then?" Zoro presses.

"None of your goddamn business. Where the hell am I parking?" He growls. Zoro looks at him with interest for a few moments before simply pointing across the road. Sanji cuts someone up to get into the parking behind the building and it's only when he stops that he sees what kind of building it is.

"You work in a coffee shop?" He questions, feeling surprised.

"That's why I got you to drop me here, moron." Zoro shoots back, his voice deadpan and eyeballing Sanji like he's brain damaged.

"So you're what, a little waitress?" He grins out the window at the green haired guy. His grin only becomes wider as he practically sees Zoro's hackles raise at the comment.

"I'm a barista, fuck face. Not all of us get jobs from Nami where we're paid to flounce around making pastries, some of us have to _earn_ a living." The guitarist snarls furiously.

"Well, maybe if you could sing…" Sanji smirks, baiting him.

"Go drive off the pier!" Zoro spits, chaining his bike up and stomping inside the back of the coffee shop amusingly angry.

Well, that certainly made Sanji feel better. He turns around in the small coffee shop car park and nips across the road and around the corner until he's in the Baratie's car park. Giving Zoro a lift certainly took his mind off of the anxiety of seeing his old man again. He sighs and slides out of the car, shutting the door behind him. He fiddles with his keys, procrastinating before having to go up to the door and find out if Zeff has changed the locks.

He takes a deep breath and steels himself. He slides his key in the lock and turns it, the door opens. He looks inside, Zeff is nowhere to be seen and anxiety hums in Sanji's stomach. His phone pings again and he looks it to see Zoro bitching about Nami deliberately abandoning him so that Sanji had to give him a lift. Sanji grins, she probably did do that, she's so clever trying to help them get along. It's not her fault that it seems to be a worthless cause.

The door slams behind him and he realises that in the moment of being distracted by Zoro's idiocy on his phone his anxiety had disappeared and he'd kicked the door shut behind him and dropped his keys into the bowl by the door. Huh.

"You'd better not be trying to come back." Zeff's voice says from the top of the stairs. Sanji looks up and scowls.

"No." He says back tightly.

"Good." Zeff retorts simply.

The two of them stare at each other for a few more seconds, neither seeming willing to break the silence.

Sanji cracks first, he almost always does.

"I've got a new phone, from the band. Thought you should have the number in case…" Sanji's lie trails off. Why would Zeff want to call him again? He's not made any effort to do so.

"What's the number?" Zeff asks, coming down a step to two. Sanji looks up at the stoic old man and restrains the smile that he wants to wear, so the old geezer does still care then…

"I'll call you with it, I know how awful you are with technology. Then you can just call me back on it. Patty can show you how." Sanji says, quickly dialling the old man's number and calling it. Sanji hears a distant ring upstairs and then hangs up.

"You left some things." The bar owner says after a few moments, jerking his head up the stairs and going back up.

"I didn't exactly have a lot of opportunity to pack." He argues back, following to their previously shared apartment above the bar. The old guy just grunts at that, offering no real opinion.

Seeing nothing else to do Sanji goes into his room, or rather, his old room. He was in rather a tearful hurry last time he was there and the place is quite a mess. Sanji grabs a bin liner and packs a few more sensible things, things he would have missed given the time. His favourite soft woollen knitted v neck sweater for example, or his hoodie with the waves on it. He'd just thrown in what had been to hand last time, but it hardly made for a good wardrobe.

Finally done with packing he swings the two bags he has left over his shoulder and nearly walks into his old man in the hallway. Zeff eyes him gruffly from under his eyebrows.

"Well, try not to be a shit to people." Zeff offers as what passes for helpful paternal advice in his world.

"Screw you old bastard! You can't talk, you're an asshole to everyone!" Sanji screeches, entirely overreacting. From the wince that Zeff makes he can guess that he was probably a bit loud there.

"Get out, shitty kid. You're the reason I'm going deaf. Maybe when you're gone for more than a week my hearing will come back properly!" Zeff snaps and kicks him in the back.

"I hope your eardrums fall out!" Sanji yells and stomps out of the front door. He throws his stuff in the car and drives home, fuming the entire way.

His altercation with Zeff puts him in a shitty mood all afternoon, one that doesn't get better when Zoro returns either. Though the guitarist is just ignoring him and avoiding him, which is about the best outcome Sanji has at the moment. As long as he's not off messing up Sanji's shit or locking him out of his room again, then all is well.

He makes a delicious moussaka for everyone for dinner, with oven baked sweet potato on the side, as well as couscous, bread, olives and hummus for everyone as well. The whole band are effusive with their compliments all through dinner, all except Zoro of course. Zoro kicks his seat back so he's balancing on the back two legs and scowls at the ceiling with a displeased huff of breath.

"That was SO amazing Sanji! You have to make more!" Luffy gasps enthusiastically. Robin giggles and Brook nods in agreement. Sanji smiles and lights up a cigarette for a nice post dinner smoke.

"You're more than welcome Luffy, though I've no idea how you can eat so much." He smirks around his smoke.

"Ahh, but it's sooo good!" The drummer praises him.

"Look, either one of you just cut to the chase and suck his dick already or we go practice, cause I'm getting sick of hearing this." Zoro grumbles, rocking his chair back forwards onto all four legs. The rest of the table looks at Zoro with wide stunned eyes.

"Well, I'm gonna let you all contemplate that, either way I'll be in the studio." The guitarist adds, standing up and turning to leave.

"You bastard!" Sanji spits, leaping to his own feet and glaring harshly at the punk-haired stroppy teenager of a guitarist's back.

"Hey, I'd stay there if I were you. It might be your lucky night." Zoro sneers at him over his shoulder.

"And you stay there all night it'll certainly be mine." The guitarist adds under his breath as he actually leaves.

Sanji grinds his teeth together so hard that the cigarette that he'd just placed between his teeth splits, filling his mouth with tobacco and the fibres of the filter. Sanji spits it out angrily and goes to throw it in the bin, all the while visualising kicking Zoro's ugly irritating face in.

"I really don't get what's up with my guitar bro. I've never seen him like this at all." Franky frowns, gathering up the plates.

"Mmm, Zoro can be a little abrasive sometimes but I've never seen him hate anyone like this before. It's just so strange." Brook agrees, collecting glasses with his long bony fingers.

"It really isn't anything to do with you, but sorry for him all the same." Nami sighs, rubbing her forehead as Franky picks up her plate for her.

"I get that I was never going to be his favourite person after Baby's-" Sanji starts as he washes his hands, but Nami cuts him off with what (despite her elegance and beauty) can only be described as a screech.

"AGH! Don't SAY that NAME." Nami orders him angrily, making Sanji jump.

Their manager's face is livid and her hands are tense fists on the table top.

"I hate her so much, don't even say that name Sanji! Oooh, if I ever see her anywhere _near_ Zoro again I'll… I'll-" Nami hisses, scrabbling for just what she might do if she happens upon the previous singer.

"Pour boiling hot bleach down her throat?" Robin suggests, in an elegant voice, looking at Nami over the top of her wineglass. Nonetheless the very suggestion of such torture makes Sanji's vocal chords wither up in sympathy of such a brutal idea. In fact it makes everyone in the room stare at her with wide shocked eyes, even more so than Zoro's earlier crude comment.

"Yeah… that'll do." Nami agrees after a moment.

"Just… don't mention that name." Nami adds, shooting Sanji a look. Sanji's still too horrified at the mere idea to even speak. Bleach in your throat would be enough to kill you but _boiling_ bleach!? It would be an understatement to say that it appears that Baby's exit caused wounds in more people than just Zoro then.

"Good god Robin terrifies me." Franky mutters as he washes the dishes. Sanji just squeaks pathetically.

"Still, Zoro's right. We should go practice. So come on, let's go, leave the cleaning and move it." Nami says, standing up and clapping her hands. Everyone else seems to shrug, put down whatever they were dealing with and file off. Sanji of course comes along with but begins to reassess his earlier assessment of it being Zoro who had everyone else bending to his whim. On the contrary it seems like Nami is the one everyone listens to and Zoro's apparently sudden insanity regarding him is just temporarily throwing that out of balance.

Sanji swallows, getting his throat to relax and comforts himself with the idea that he'd far rather be living under Nami's beautiful mercy than Zoro's foul mouth and awful manners.

He enters the studio, making Zoro look up and fix him with one of those looks that tells Sanji just how pleased the guitarist is at his containing to be alive, which is to say, not at all.

"Well that was quick, are you always so disappointing?" Zoro shoots at him sarcastically.

"Get fucked." Sanji argues back, kicking him off of the bean bag on the floor that the moss head is sprawled on. Sanji drinks and warms up his throat a little whilst everyone else attends to their more visible instrument. A lot of people don't appreciate that a voice is an instrument just like any other, and Sanji knows full well he really should warm up more than he does. All the same, when the others are ready Nami tells them what song they're starting with. It's one Sanji's listened to about ten times already, but not one that he's played with them yet.

It's a love song, of sorts anyway. A bitter broken love song that Sanji would bet Zoro wrote after Baby rightfully abandoned the rude underserving ass. When he's heard Zoro sing it it's almost as if he can't contain himself and could almost scream. It clearly affects the song. Sanji knows full well that he can bring more control to the piece than Zoro can, that'll put him in his place.

Zoro begins playing, the guitar takes up a fair portion of the intro. Sanji closes his eyes and settles into the music. Despite his antagonistic relationship with the guitarist he's actually very _very_ good. Sanji's never heard him drop a note, misform a chord or accidentally scratch the strings. He swallows, licks his lips, and begins to sing focusing on the scaling up of power throughout the lines.

"_"Self-loathing is quaint,"  
you told me, showing restraint.  
Now you're gone and I'm lost,  
In the swells I am tossed -  
bobbing and choking and losing the fight in the fog.  
You said, "Forever..." Tell me, why can't you stay?_

I'd ride in your pocket all day,  
but I just don't fit.  
Say the word and I'll change.  
I'm throwin' a party tonight.  
I drink more than a sailor on shore.  
Pour the rum in my eyes, tell me lies."

The lyrics are rather self-indulgently sad, if very creative. Sanji would never write lyrics like that, not that he can write at all. Zoro lends his voice to the parts where he's needed and Sanji continues, trying to ignore the way Zoro's judgemental eyes watch him.

_"Oh, oh-oh-oh, Oh, oh-oh-oh  
Drunk since Saturday,  
without you, without restraint.  
It still stings where you stung.  
Water swings in my lungs.  
I'm starving for words that would ration my sadness away.  
Tell me, "Forever..."  
Tell me you'll come back to stay._

I'd ride in your pocket all day,  
but I just don't fit.  
Say the word and I'll change.  
I'm throwin' a party tonight.  
I drink more than a sailor on shore.  
Pour the rum in my eyes, tell me lies."

Sanji continues but Zoro's judging look gets harder. He clenches his hand into a fist and focuses on his technical ability and how he knows it's better than Zoro's. He makes the notes smooth and the transitions seamless. He lets his voice arch over the lyrics, delivering them cleanly and clearly, not half shouted out like Zoro's version is.

_"You were the mermaid for me  
'til one day you found your feet  
leaving me in this god-awful bottle  
a model of heartache and grief._

I'd ride in your pocket all day,  
but I just don't fit.  
Say the word and I'll change.  
I'm throwin' a party tonight.  
I drink more than a sailor on shore.  
Pour the rum in my eyes, tell me lies."

He finishes feeling pleased with himself. He looks to Zoro to see the other man watching him quietly. Sanji thinks that he might have actually impressed the other man for a moment before the guitarist takes his guitar off, sliding the strap over his head with a sigh.

"This is a waste of my time. Why did you even hire him Nami? He can't do this job." Zoro says, turning to look at Nami through the window.

"What the _hell_?!" Sanji snarls, shoving Zoro in the shoulder.

"Get lost, cook. I wasn't talking to you." Zoro snaps back irritably.

"You were talking about me! Look if you've got a problem with my singing then let's hear it, or are you just going to admit that your problem is with me because you just don't want _anyone_ in this job no matter how well they can sing!" Sanji accuses furiously.

"You CAN'T sing!" Zoro screams in Sanji's face.

Now that actually makes Sanji step back, the rage flowing off of the guitarist is palpable, his energy giving his words far more force than they truly deserved. Zoro sighs and pinches his own nose in frustration.

"Don't get me wrong. You have range, better than mine. You can hold a note better than I can and you've got more power in your lungs than I do. I'm not blind, but you're not singing. You're mimicking." Zoro says with a sigh, putting his precious guitar down in its stand.

"Of course I'm mimicking, I didn't write the songs." Sanji points out.

"Then you fucking make them yours, you're supposed to own what you sing. I might not be a great singer but at least I own something when I do it. I put my emotions into what I sing, you just copy the sounds of someone feeling something. You've got all the emotional range of a sponge, and it _shows._ You can't sing about love because you've never been in love, and you can't sing about loss because I don't think you've ever lost anything worth losing_._" The guitarist says, pointing an accusing finger in Sanji's chest.

Sanji can only splutter indignantly at that frankly ridiculous accusation. Zoro's the one who's too emotionally retarded to realise that Sanji isn't the same person as his ex-girlfriend and to therefore stop taking out his issues about getting dumped onto him. Zoro's the one who seems to only have three settings of personality, namely stupidly angry, irritatingly indifferent or nauseatingly sarcastic. How _dare_ Zoro accuse _him_ of having no emotional depth?!

"What, so you had a girl break your heart and that makes you special somehow? You think that somehow you get some great singing power just because you've suffered a little? When really what happened was you got slapped and broken up with in front of a crowd. You just hate me because I'm not her, you're the one not in control of their emotions." Sanji snarls back viciously. Zoro's eyes widen and Sanji all but drinks up the flash of pain the runs through the guitarist's face.

"I'm plenty in control, and at least I have emotions beyond spite and anger, unlike you." Zoro says coldly.

"But hey, since I'm so biased, anyone else is welcome to tell me that I'm wrong. If you're such a good singer ask any of them if they believed you when you sang." Zoro challenges, gesturing to the rest of the band. Sanji looks over to see everyone staring tensely at the two of them.

"He'll get it Zoro, trust me." Luffy says confidently. Sanji winces, hurt slightly at Luffy's words. Whilst the other guy's confidence is nice, the fact that he thinks Sanji _will_ get it says very clearly that he thinks that he doesn't have it now.

"Maybe let's call that a night." Nami suggests weakly from her place behind the glass studio wall.

"Get a new job." Zoro says quietly to Sanji before turning and walking out.

Sanji bites his lip and resists the urge to scream. He feels awful, both from the argument and saying something so cruel when he'd promised not to but also because his new friends apparently think that Zoro has a point. A well of self-doubt fills him, maybe he shouldn't be here.

"You'll get it." Luffy repeats, slapping Sanji on the shoulder.

"I didn't realise that I didn't have it." Sanji sniffs, tugging his shoulder away.

Luffy looks at him thoughtfully for a few moments before turning to the window.

"Chopper, send Sanji the file of that song. Let him listen to it later." Luffy calls.

"Sure thing!" Chopper nods and starts typing.

Sanji excuses himself quickly, not letting himself meet Usopp's eyes. He doesn't know what expression the keyboardist will be wearing right now but after what Sanji and Zoro had just said he doesn't want to see. Everything just feels like it's falling apart.

He climbs the stairs up to his floor, his attention only pulled to the world outside the window when he hears the sound of tyres on gravel. He looks out of the window to see Zoro pedalling away on his bike, leaving a spray of gravel in his wake.

His phone pings and for a moment he thinks that it must be Zoro saying something malicious about him on twitter again but to his surprise it's not. Evidently one of the things Nami has put on his new phone is something to share files between them, and the one that's come into his phone is entitled "drunken lament – Sanji" and it's an audio file.

He sighs and goes to his room. He plugs his big headphones into his phone and listens to Zoro's version first. To him it still sounds sloppy and uncontrolled, Sanji just can't ever let himself sing like that, but even so he can hear the emotion in Zoro's voice, even if it overrides his singing ability.

Then he listens to the recording of his own. It's still pretty raw, Chopper hasn't quite worked all of his magic on it yet- not that he'd expect him to for what clearly isn't going to be a final take of the song. Even so it's a little strange hearing his own voice pumped into his ears.

He listens.

His voice is controlled, he can hear a few places where he could improve his control but… well. Zoro might have a point. Technically speaking the song is good, his voice is strong, controlled, on key and otherwise very good. But there's no real life to it. He sees what Zoro meant when he said that he didn't believe Sanji when he sang. The song is about love and loss and desperation but when he sings it they seems like just words.

He sings the song again, quietly to himself, just loud enough so that he can hear. He tries to put emotion into it, to feel that tangled mix of love and desperation that the song alludes to but he just can't. He hasn't ever felt that for someone. So he tries to fake it, he tries to imagine it but it sounds even more false than before.

He flicks through Zoro's songs, the ones that are about feeling crazy or life in general he can do and the ones about crazy fantastical situations like Lake Pontchartrain he can do easily. But as soon as it veers into that snarled love/hate feeling he falls flat. So many of Zoro's songs seem to be like that, about loving someone and being destroyed by someone, they speak of having someone rip your heart out and hating them for it but still in love. It just doesn't make any sense.

The more songs he tries the more despondent he becomes. Is he really too young to do this? Is he too naïve of how the world work or how love really is to sing about it? He certainly doesn't want the experiences that Zoro has had, not the unpleasant ones anyway, but does he have to have them in order to be able to carry the songs off? Should he actually just… go home?

Thankfully his sense of spite kicks in. Fuck that. He wasn't just going to roll over and let Zoro have his way. So spite is the only emotion Zoro thinks he has? Well fine, he's going to learn how to sing as if he's felt all that Zoro has felt and he's going to be better than Zoro thinks he is and he's going to make that punk-haired ASS eat his own words!

Fuming he leaps off of his bed, not even bothering to take his headphones out and instead leaving them around his neck. He quickly descends the stairs and steps quickly over to Usopp's room. He knocks on the door and after a short pause opens it.

Usopp's room is full of windows. He has a corner room and windows stretch from floor to ceiling on two walls of his room, they give views of the front of the house and the grounds to the side, it feels like some amazing lofty perch. From the ceiling delicate mobiles hang, not like child's mobiles but elaborately balanced things made of copper, all twirling gently in some non-existent breeze.

Usopp is sat, looking at him with surprise, on a long ornate wooden bench seat pushed against one of the windows.

"Sanji." He remarks, putting his book down and looking at the singer with curious brown eyes.

"Tell me about Zoro." He demands, coming into the room.

"Considering the last thing I told you about Zoro-" Usopp begins with a frown.

"I know, I messed up, I shouldn't have said what I did. I just… Zoro was right okay? I listened to it, I'm just… faking those feelings, and not well either. If I stand any chance of doing this well I'm going to need to get into Zoro's head, he's the one who wrote these songs, well, him and you." Sanji concedes. He drags a frustrated hand through his hair.

"I want to be in this band, and I like the music, I want to sing it well but… if I can't feel what Zoro was feeling when he wrote them… or at least can't imagine it then what chance do I stand? So please, help me?" he pleads.

Usopp's expression softens and he sighs. The keyboard player pats the bench next to him and Sanji comes in and sits down. He pulls his knees up and looks at Usopp hopefully.

"Tell me… tell me what it was like when they were together. What did he see in her, why was she with him? If she really betrayed you all so badly then what makes you say that he still loves her?" Sanji questions all in a rush. He needs to get into Zoro's head, he needs to feel what he felt, or else he might as well leave.

Usopp leans back and chews his lip a little, Sanji doesn't know if it's in thought or reluctance to talk.

"You don't use any of this against Zoro, okay?" Usopp orders him quietly.

"I swear, I just want to understand the bastard." He agrees, understanding full well that if he does break his word again he'll probably be kicked out of the band altogether.

"When I was seven my mother died, leaving me all alone. There was an orphanage nearby so I didn't have to go anywhere really, but it wasn't exactly somewhere where people cared about you, you were just a space in a bed." Usopp says bitterly.

"Shit, I'm sorry." Sanji apologises awkwardly.

"That's not the point of this story, this is about Zoro." Usopp says, shaking his head and making his curly black hair shake.

"Zoro was the only kid at my school who didn't look at me like… like…" Usopp seems to struggle for the words but Sanji is able to fill them in just fine on his own.

"Like there must be something wrong with you?" Sanji states softly. The keyboard player looks up at him with startled eyes, his expression fades to a curious kind of understanding.

"My mother left me and my old man when I was five. Just… one day she wasn't there and never came back. Go on." Sanji says quickly, not wanting to linger especially on that tale at all.

"Well, Zoro was my friend. He stopped the other kids from picking on me, he looked out for me, we were buddies. Even though he had a home and father and a sister, he still hung out with me. His sister played guitar, the white acoustic that Zoro has. She was so much better than him and it drove him mad, no matter how much he played and practiced she was always better. It was so funny." Usopp chuckles to himself. Only… only then Usopp's face turns sad and he looks out the window silently for a moment, long enough for Sanji to wonder why if Zoro's sister is the one who owns that white acoustic in the video how come Zoro has it. And it's long enough for him to realise that this bit of the story doesn't have a happy ending.

"She died. It was an accident but, she died. Zoro's father couldn't take it and Zoro ended up living with me in the orphanage. But he was still the one looking out for me, even though he was the one who…" Usopp shakes his head and trails off.

"He's like that you see, Zoro. He thinks of everyone else ahead of him, he'd do anything to help the people he cares about. He's not this evil bastard you think he is." Usopp sighs, looking Sanji in the eyes.

"He's not exactly done a lot to convince me of that." Sanji points out.

"He's not usually like that." Usopp reasons.

Sanji bites his lip and considers that a little more.

"So, Baby?" Sanji prompts.

"Well, we didn't have parents any more. Some people do and perhaps… shouldn't. Baby went to school with us, you got to know all the other musicians that the school, a fight for securing practice rooms and everything. Baby had parents, or a father anyway." The keyboard player says distantly.

"He was… awful. He'd hurt her, get violently angry. Zoro found out and… well, he did what Zoro always does. He stepped in. He tried to get her out of there, tried to help her out when things got bad. But that kind of thing doesn't just stop, so one day he just wouldn't leave. Nothing Baby or I said would make him go so instead of hurting her Baby's father attacked Zoro instead, and unlike Baby Zoro fought back. He nearly got himself killed in the process too, if you ever see him without his shirt on then you'll see the scar that he got defending her." Usopp sighs.

That… that surprises Sanji. He's always considered himself the kind of guy that would go to any length to defend a woman but it seems that Zoro isn't so dissimilar from himself in that regard. Except he'd never grab Nami like Zoro did. But… well, the red-haired beauty did say that Zoro wouldn't have hurt her in a million years he was just… what was the term she'd used? Barking and not biting?

"That got him locked away, which was what Zoro wanted I guess. But, somewhere before or during all that… I'm not sure when exactly they became a thing. And I guess it's hard to break a bond that you've gone through so much for you know?" Usopp shrugs.

"I thought that they'd drift apart or something eventually but… something was wrong there and I don't know what. It was like she could make him do almost anything that she wanted, I don't think he could say no to her." The other man frowns unhappily.

"He said no when she tried to take him with her." Sanji points out, trying to disguise his guess as a simple statement.

"He told you?" Usopp asks sceptically. Sanji laughs and shakes his head, as if Zoro would tell him that.

"Baby had said choose on the video and immediately went off to form her own band after stealing a bunch of your songs. If Zoro's the main writer it doesn't take a genius to figure out that she had intended on taking him with her. You think he regrets saying no to her?" He questions.

"I don't think he regrets saying no, I think he regrets that she asked. I think maybe part of him is still waiting for her to come back, I don't think he entirely wants her to but I know some of him does. But of course, if the job's no longer open because you're here, well… that means it's really over." Usopp theorises with a shrug.

"Well that'd explain it a little I guess." Sanji grumbles. Zoro still doesn't need to be quite such a huge unreasonable bastard about it. Even if Sanji does represent the end of his relationship for good with Baby it's not as if he'd ever actually leapt between them and run off with her or anything. Hell he's never even met the woman!

"What was she actually like though?" He asks with a frown. People keep telling him what she did or how much she hurt Zoro but no one's ever actually told him what she was really like.

Usopp seems to think for a moment, perhaps trying to come up with a fair assessment of her character.

"Messed up, I guess. She needed to be needed by someone all the time. Like, if you needed her help with something she was all over that, she liked to feel important. She knew how to make Zoro happy and the fact that Zoro was happiest with her often seemed to make her happy. I don't think she liked that he was happy with us too though. She didn't like that he could do songs without her, or that he could write with me as well as her." The other man scowls angrily.

"She could be cruel too, but Zoro would always say it was nothing. I tried to keep out of it and whenever I did try to intervene I got the feeling I made it worse. But, it doesn't matter now, he's away from her." The keyboard player says with an air of finality as he gets up from the bench. Sanji senses that the conversation is over.

"Thanks, I guess. I promise I won't say anything." He vows as he stands up.

"Good." Usopp nods.

Sanji takes his leave then, heading back upstairs to his room. He falls back on his bed and re-listens to all of the songs that he's been unable to really sing. He tries to put himself in Zoro's shoes, to imagine how it must feel to be bound to someone like that, through such a traumatic and painful history.

As Zoro's words play through his ears through his headphones he thinks about Zoro stepping between Baby and her awful father. That is something that he can really imagine doing himself. Perhaps that's where he should start relating to Zoro, it's… a common point of reference as it were. From there he can use his imagination. He can imagine saving a girl, imagine falling for her. But perhaps… perhaps even though you've had a dramatic fairy-tale beginning doesn't mean that it's meant to be. But how to you disentangle yourself from someone like that? Perhaps Zoro is proof that you can't really.

He starts to drift off, listening to the music on repeat. His last thought when he drifts off is wondering just what this scar of Zoro's is like.

By morning he's somehow unplugged his headphones from his phone, which is lost for a little while in his bed and takes some searching to find. Still, he thinks that perhaps he might be starting to get it now. For once he doesn't head to the kitchen right away to start cooking, instead he diverts to the studio. It's empty and quiet so he slips inside the main room, knowing full well that it'll automatically be recording and he can listen back to it later.

Seeing as the rest of the band isn't here he's going to need some music. He slides his headphones back over his ears and picks the first love song that jumps out at him. When he'd first heard this song he'd thought it was about having broken up with someone and sleeping with them again because you were listening to your dick. But now he thinks that perhaps it's about being separated from someone who you really know is bad news, someone that your head is telling you not to be with, but your heart gets in the way. When he listens to Zoro sing it he can hear the way he almost pleads for her and where he's all but yelling that it's a terrible idea.

He presses play and leans into the mic. Zoro's guitar brings him in as he starts to sing and feels Zoro's conflicted emotions.

"_Here I am, at home again, this rainy avenue  
put me in my proper place, I'm not the one for you,  
but you're here now, can you come in?  
It's freezing...  
I'd found a way to blur your face and smear the words you said  
You made me feel alive again, I wish we'd never met  
but you're here now, can you come in?  
I'm freezing..."_

He can just imagine Zoro standing in the doorway of this very building. The rain pouring down outside and Baby at the door, asking him to let her in. He keeps his eyes shut and imagines Zoro's indecision. He shouldn't let her in but he wants to so very badly. His head saying no and his heart saying yes.

_"I finally let go and learned to live without you,  
after all those weeks alone, but now you're back for more.  
I'm tryin' to fight it off but there's a mutiny below._

There were nights when I was sure your love was all I had  
Pining at the door you left through, God it hurt so bad,  
but you're here now, you're making eyes  
I'm breaking..."

He feels Zoro starting to waver, to give in even though he can see how much it'll hurt. He can feel that Zoro knows in his head that it'll hurt but how could he say no? He remembers Usopp's words about Zoro finding it almost impossible not to help people. If he was in this situation Sanji would put his money on Zoro letting her in.__

"I finally let go and learned to live without you,  
after all those weeks alone, but now you're back for more.  
I'm tryin' to fight it off but there's a mutiny below.  
I finally let go but there's a mutiny below.

"Just one more night..." you ask so tenderly - a softer side  
I'd longed so long to see.  
So long…"

He can almost see the cold and drenched woman at the door of the house and Zoro cracking, the sense that his heart might convince him that this time might really be different.

""_You slip inside, we'll work it out  
tomorrow..._

I finally let go and learned to live without you,  
after all those weeks alone, but now you're back for more.  
I'm tryin' to fight it off but there's a mutiny below.

_I finally let go,  
I'm tryin' to fight it off but there's a mutiny  
from everything left but my soul.  
I can't hang on - let me go."_

Sanji slides the headphones off of his ears and looks at the mic. He's no real idea what he sounded like there, but it felt right. He should get Chopper to cut the song and put it into a file so that he can listen to it and then perhaps trying to sing it again when he can hear his own voice in his ears instead of Zoro's.

"Wow." A voice makes him jump about a foot in the air.

In the doorway to the studio is Zoro but behind him is Nami, it was her who spoke. She's peering excitedly at him around Zoro's arm, her beautiful smile big and beaming. But it's Zoro's expression that he's drawn to. It's… well, Sanji isn't sure what it is. There's surprise there on that dumb face but Sanji can see an echo of all the emotions that he'd just imagined, as if Zoro wasn't quite there but was instead seeing the vision in Sanji's head. Perhaps it had been real.

Zoro squints at him for a moment or two, as if sizing him up. Under this scrutiny Sanji stands up a little straighter, juts his jaw in a challenge. He's just begging Zoro to find some other flaw to accuse him of. No matter what Zoro says to tell him that he can't do this job, no matter what Zoro demands of him he'll surpass his expectations and imagined limitations. Zoro can bring it.

But Zoro says nothing. He takes one step back, then another and then turns to go, with one last fleeting look at Sanji. He doesn't run off, he's not emotional, he's not angry. He just leaves. At first Sanji's pissed. But then he considers that Zoro had no criticism, no biting remark about him not being good enough, no demand that he leave. Nothing.

Sanji grins as Nami compliments him, saying how she knew he'd get it. But what matters to Sanji is just how much he proved Zoro wrong.

"Come on, let's have breakfast, yeah?" Nami smiles at him and tugs his arm as she leads him to the kitchen.

Sanji makes whatever the rest of the band wants, calls for pancakes, cooked sausages, fruit and more. He serves it all up happily. Zoro remains tellingly silent. Sanji is nice about it, he doesn't gloat at all. Not even when Nami tells the others just how good Sanji was and how Chopper enthuses about perhaps trying to cut his performance together with already recorded music for that song to see how well it fits. Nami discusses recording it again with Sanji's voice instead of Zoro's and releasing it as part of his debut to the band.

The guitarist still stays mute through all of that, though this time he sticks around to wash up whilst Sanji dries and puts away and Franky brings dishes to the sink.

"Shit Zoro, again? You know for someone who rides a bike as often as you do, you're remarkably bad at it." Franky exclaims from behind Sanji.

Sanji turns back around from replacing glasses in the cupboard to see Franky pulling at Zoro's sleeve and pulling his arm out of the water. Zoro's long black sleeves are rolled up to his biceps to keep them out of the water and fresh bruises litter his forearms, even more so now that he looks Sanji thinks he can see a purpling bruise on the guitarist's chin too.

"Blame joggers who run at stupid hours of the night dressed entirely in black, not me. Either I swerve to avoid them or I run them over." Zoro snaps, pulling his arm back and scowling at the washing as he scrubs a plate.

"At least you have an excuse for looking like you got dragged through a hedge backwards then Zoro." Nami teases playfully from the table, her dazzling with amazing Sanji as always.

Sanji tunes out their argument. The thought of Zoro and injuries makes him less curious about Zoro's apparently noble attempt to save a runner's life by suddenly taking his bike off-road and, from the sounds of it, down a ditch. Instead he becomes even more curious about this apparent scar under his shirt that he got instead of Baby. Now that he'd like to see.

Songs are both by Ludo this time. Drunken Lament and Mutiny Below


	4. Chapter 4

Sanji can't really say what it was he expected when he finally nailed singing with the emotions that Zoro intended, but he certainly expected Zoro to react in _some_ way. As it is the damn green headed fucker hasn't said a word the entire way up to the kitchen and despite Nami's wonderful praise Sanji finds himself irked.

It's not even like Zoro's said anything bad either, not a word has crossed the fucker's lips.

Nothing. Nada.

To his shame when he comes in the kitchen he's so agitated by Zoro that it takes him a few seconds to notice the gorgeous lady in the kitchen who he's never met before. She's got china pale skin, gorgeous blonde hair and the most chocolate eyes that Sanji could just melt in. She lights up when she sees him, her beautiful mouth pulling into a pleased smile that just freezes Sanji to the spot as if the very heavens had opened and transfixed him.

"Oh! You must be the new singer, Sanji isn't it?" She exclaims, looking at him.

"Yes, Sanji, Kaya. Kaya, Sanji." Nami says, introducing them.

"Very pleased to meet you." Sanji blurts out, stepping forward to her.

"Usopp's told me so much about you, he says you're very good." Kaya smiles angelically at him.

"He… has?" Sanji blinks in confusion, looking at the keyboardist sitting next this angelic creature, he apparently is currently too busy reading something to even pay attention to the conversation at all.

"Kaya is Usopp's fiancée." Nami explains with a smile.

Oh yeah, Franky mentioned something like that when he first came here. But to be honest it'd fallen completely out of his head until now. Usopp is engaged. He looks at Kaya and her radiant beauty and then at Usopp. Despite his best intentions and nicest feelings towards the other musician Sanji can't help but have a moment of thinking _'really?' _ because as nice as Usopp is he's a little goofy looking and Kaya is drop dead gorgeous. Still, that's not his business and all the better for Usopp for actually managing to get such a beauty into his life.

"Then it's definitely lovely to meet you, have you eaten already? Can I get you breakfast?" He offers quickly with a smile.

"Oh, well, that would be wonderful, thank you!" she smiles at him.

"So when is the wedding?" Sanji asks curiously, moving past the counters and slipping an apron on. Zoro is leaning against the edge of a cabinet glued to his phone with a scowl on, but evidently he has been paying some attention as it's him who answers instead of Usopp or Kaya.

"Two weeks exactly." Zoro says flatly, shoving his phone back into his pocket.

"Zoro is the best man, he's taking it very seriously." Kaya mock whispers with a teasing smile on her face.

"There, that's the flower guy's receipt sent to you, he sent it through to me after I fixed his fuck up." Zoro shouts across to Usopp.

"Thanks." The long nosed guy sighs in relief and crosses something off of the sheet of paper that he's reading from.

"That's pretty soon, are you nervous?" Sanji asks with a smile.

"Of course not!" Kaya giggles gorgeously, Usopp on the other hand seems to turn a few shades paler and makes an anxious squeaking in the back of his throat.

"You worry too much." Kaya adds, clucking her tongue and flicking Usopp's nose.

Sanji starts throwing a wide assortment of breakfast together for everyone whilst Zoro studious ignores that he's even alive, but he's not harassing him or openly mocking him so you know, whatever. Perhaps with enough time Zoro will even warm to him. Maybe this is a step into breaking through Zoro's complete bastard shell.

"Zoro, the dresses…" Usopp asks in his highly strung voice.

"Nami and Robin's are coming tomorrow, calm down, it'll be fine." Zoro says soothingly.

"But the chairs-" Usopp panics again.

"Dealing with it, Usopp. They're fixing it." Zoro cuts him off.

"But- but-" The keyboardist panics.

Zoro huffs and rounds the counter to go to Usopp, Sanji watches him out of the corner of his eye with extreme interest. Zoro ruffles his hand through Usopp's hair and falls into the chair next to him.

"Seriously, calm down. I'd sooner burn my guitars than let anything ruin your big day, so chill out." Zoro snorts.

"Yeah… yeah okay. Thanks man." Usopp mumbles and leans his head onto Zoro's shoulder. Zoro just chuckles to himself, deep and low and throws his arm around Usopp's side, warm and familiar.

Sanji only just manages to avoid burning the eggs. Sure, he's heard of Zoro being nice but he's never seen it. Zoro's been a moody bitch the whole time he's been here but now he's all buddy buddy with Usopp? Sure Usopp had _said_ about it but Sanji had assumed that he was exaggerating or something. He'd thought Zoro's niceness was like unicorns or free elections in third world countries – something that people talked about but didn't actually exist. But here Zoro was being all sweet and shit.

Holy balls.

Zoro and Usopp are still talking and Zoro is even being sweet to Kaya, apparently when Zoro wants to he can be a total ball of tooth-rotting sweetness. Sanji is about having an aneurism over this knowledge. So it really is just him that turns Zoro from this into the dick he's been of late.

A snarl of offence lashes through his system at that thought. He's been nothing but nice to Zoro since- okay, well that wasn't true. He's been mostly cordial or even pleasant to the other man, he doesn't deserve this disparity of treatment! It's not fair!

"Chopper, you need to mix Sanji's vocals, I want to hear what it's like recorded with the music behind it. It was amazing you should have heard!" Nami gushes, completely erasing Sanji's black mood. He looks over to see the manager smiling enthusiastically as their audio wizard that is Chopper.

"Sure, I'd be interested to hear that too." Chopper agrees happily.

"Sanji managed it then? That was quick!" Luffy laughs happily. Sanji doesn't know what it is about Luffy but the kid always seems to be amused about something, he doesn't know if the guy is stupid and easily amused or if he's seeing some bigger picture that Sanji isn't and just likes seeing all the pieces fall into place. He doesn't think he'll ever be sure one way or the other.

He slides the finished breakfast onto the table with a smile and everyone except Zoro thanks him. Fucking Zoro. He supposes that at least Zoro isn't outright insulting him now.

"I think it'll just be better to re-record the whole thing at the next full practice, the whole point of Sanji singing is to let Zoro focus on his guitar work, it'll be better for both of them." Chopper reasons.

"Well, okay. But that'll take time. Couldn't you just give us a cut-together preview?" Nami asks with a slight frown pinching her perfect orange eyebrows.

"I can… but… really I insist that it has to be re-recorded sooner or later." Chopper insists.

"Sure thing, you can do that right Sanji?" Nami asks, batting her eyelashes at him flintily.

"OF COURSE MY LOVE!" He crows joyfully, flailing his arms around and nearly stabbing Franky with a fork in the process.

"Idiot." Zoro mutters.

"What did you say, asshole?" Sanji snarls, jabbing his dangerous fork in Zoro's direction.

"I said, you're an idiot. Is your hearing shot too?" Zoro challenges him back, taking his arm from around the back of Usopp's seat and putting it on the table with a fist curled up threateningly.

"See, this is what I mean." Nami mumbles to Kaya.

"Can't you even _try_ to be nice to me?!" He accuses the guitarist angrily.

"No." Zoro says flatly with a smug grin.

"Well fake it then, make believe, just be less of an asshole!" Sanji yells, throwing his arms in the air. Anything would be better than Zoro's random antagonism.

"Yeah, I'm so filled with love for you it deeply sickens me." Zoro retorts, though some strange expression flits across his face for a moment that Sanji doesn't recognise.

"You know the least you could do is take it back, all the… the vicious remarks and completely uncalled for verbal attacks! You're not this much of a dick to anyone else! What did _I_ do?!" Sanji demands, leaping to his feet and jabbing an accusing finger in Zoro's direction.

"Oh my." Kaya mumbles.

"They're always like this." Robin sighs, distracting Sanji slightly.

"Wait- say that again." Zoro says from his position leaning over the table and staring at Sanji.

"What, about all the vicious remarks and verbal attacks? How you're at total bastard to me for no reason? That part?" He shoots back.

Zoro has the strangest expression on his face, he's looking at Sanji but Sanji suspects that he's not really looking at him. More like Zoro is looking through him at something else. The singer almost turns to look over his shoulder as Zoro's expression is so intensely focused.

"I have to go." The guitarist mumbles and dashes from the table.

"Oh no you don't!" Sanji yelps and disentangles himself from the chair behind him, giving chase to Zoro who has fled out into the hallway.

"What's your problem already?!" He yells up the stairs as Zoro disappears, but the idiot doesn't even answer him.

"GOOD! Just go! Because I can't fucking stand it when you're around!" He yells up at Zoro. This actually makes the other man stop and look at him again for a second before disappearing with another burst of speed.

"FINE!" He screams up the stairs. He is not fine. He wants to kick the ever loving snot out of the green haired bastard and roll around in his blood out of sheer maniacal glee.

Sanji pinches the bridge of his nose. Zoro is not good for his blood pressure, he gives him some really messed up thoughts too. He's always been known for his somewhat short fuse but Zoro just gets him from mellow to murderous in _seconds_ and there's no way that should be possible.

He hisses and mutters curses and death threats under his breath as he descends the plush stairs in what has rapidly become his home. Nami is looking up at him with despairing eyes and he really hates to let her down or disappoint her. He's disappointing himself too but somehow Zoro just seems to bypass his brain and just go straight into Sanji's emotions, he's like some kind of virus, he feels like he's been hacked.

"Sorry mellorine." He apologises hastily.

"All the time?" Kaya whispers to Robin.

"Indeed." Robin confirms, making Sanji's shoulders drop unhappily. Goddamnit, now Zoro was giving him a bad name and he wasn't even here to do it!

"Come on." Nami beckons and he dutifully follows.

His lovely angel leads them all downstairs into the recording studio. Chopper is already at his seat with headphones over his ears, doing something remarkably complicated looking with software. Fancy sliders on the deck are going this way and that, Choppers fingers fly over the keyboard as he cuts up music and stitches it back together, healing over the seams and making everything better than before.

What's more impressive is that the little audio genius can focus with Luffy bouncing excitedly on the chair next to him, his grin wide and expectant.

"Okay… It's just rough because I really want this whole thing re-recorded, but it'll do for a trial." Chopper sighs, sliding off his headphones and messing up his out of control brown tufty hair as he does so. The boy presses play and Zoro's guitar kicks in.

So far so familiar but he's startled out of his skin when his own voice comes through the speakers. It's smoother and more controlled than Zoro's was but as the song progresses he can hear all the raw emotion and despite it having just come out of his mouth this very morning it still tugs at his heart strings and the imagined memory of Zoro's dilemma with his previous love shoots through him.

Damnit. Why is it so much easier to be sympathetic to Zoro when he's not here being an ass? He feels like he can relate so much more to the Zoro that his songs speak of than he can to the sulking angry brat that he knows in person.

As the last wrenching note of his echoes through the air his bandmates come to life, all looking at him excited and happy. Franky slaps Sanji on the back so hard that it makes his teeth rattle a little bit.

"That sounds so good Sanji!" Kaya beams at him. Behind her Usopp smiles happily at Sanji and he thinks that maybe Usopp is happy because Sanji has finally got into Zoro's head. It's helped with his singing, sure enough but it's not helped him deal any better with the guitarist himself.

"I knew you could do it." Luffy grins at him.

"Thanks Luffy." He finds himself smiling. Luffy is always happy but not ridiculously easy to please. Despite his odd position of drummer it's obvious that Luffy is still the frontman of the band and so he's pleased that Luffy sees fit to praise him.

"Nami, we're going to do a show before the wedding." Luffy declares as if that's that. The others all look to Nami for orders but even in his short time here Sanji has noticed that any serious statement from Luffy is met with obedience from all and Nami enforcing Luffy's will with an iron fist. He just wishes that Luffy would order Zoro not to be a jerk.

"So soon?" Sanji balks, wide eyed. He's still not sure that Zoro won't just up and kill him on stage. They're still not able to co-operate unless they're sharing the same microphone and ordered not to move from it on pain of death, surely they can't do that on stage. They're not ready yet, surely?

"I'll arrange it as soon as I can." Nami nods business-like and pulls her phone out.

"Oh my, Zoro won't like that." Brook comments quietly from the back of the room. Sanji almost jumps at the sound, to be honest he frequently forgets that Brook is there at all.

"So don't tell him then." Nami shrugs and returns her attention to the phone.

"I don't think that plan will work long term Nami." Brook reasons, but Nami has already ignored him for whoever has just picked up on the other end of the phone. She issues cheerful greetings to whoever it is as she leaves the room for some quiet.

"I'm… not getting in the middle of that." Sanji mutters to himself. Zoro hates him enough already without him being the bearer of more bad news.

Still, he's excited about the idea of a show, even if he feels a little nervous about it too.

"Well, I need to go to class. We can record this tonight, perhaps. Zoro doesn't have work tonight so we ought to be fine." Chopper says with a nod, hopping off of his chair.

"I'll give you a ride." Sanji offers. Truthfully he doesn't have anything much to do in town, and he doesn't feel like seeing Zeff either, he just doesn't want to be cooped up in the same building with Zoro all day.

"Oh, thank you Sanji." Chopper smiles up at him.

"No problem, come on. It was lovely to meet you Kaya." He adds, giving a deep bow to Usopp's lovely fiancée as he goes.

"You too Sanji, I look forward to the show." She replies with a small wave. Usopp isn't paying attention to what she's saying, his attention is on a quiet conversation with Robin, but Sanji can't help but notice the way Usopp's hand lingers on Kaya's waist. It's as if he's part of her even when he's not actively thinking about her, it's sweet.

Sanji tosses his keys up in the air and catches them over and over as he walks Chopper to his car. The little prodigy follows quietly. Out of everyone in the band Sanji kinda feels like he knows the kid the least, it could be just the age difference but he feels he's got an okay read off of everyone else so far.

Brook is often reading and drinking tea with Robin in dead silence, he's learnt that around Robin Brook tends to say stupid things so one of the few ways they can spend time together alone is in silence with their mutual interests of tea and books. Whilst the two of them can be a little dark they're both funny in their own way and Sanji gets on with them pretty well. Franky is exuberant but far smarter than he appears, he suspects the same of Luffy too. Usopp and Nami both talk to him enough and he likes them both (especially his gorgeous Nami~!)

He spends more than enough time interacting with Zoro, though he obviously neither understands nor likes the man. Chopper though… Chopper has let himself fade mostly into the background. So as the little prodigy slides into Sanji's car in his oversized pink and blue coat with his pink hat on his head and his big headphones on his neck, the singer can't help but feel like this could be an opportunity to get to know him. It actually ends up being Chopper who speaks first.

"What happened to your stereo?" The kid gasps in horror, noticing the same thing that Zoro did.

"Oh, I ripped it out in a fit of anger. The speakers still work and it can play music from my phone, it's Bluetooth or something, but the radio was driving me crazy. Every stupid song just- agh. Stuck." He grimaces in frustration, tapping the side of his head to emphasise just where they got stuck.

"That's fascinating. Does it work with anything you make musical?" Chopper asks him wide eyed and curious. Sanji glances at the kid as he drives.

"Yeah, it's how I remember phone numbers, make them into a little ditty and they're in there forever." Sanji answers with a shrug instantly remembering Zeff's phone number song.

Chopper giggles to himself and Sanji looks down at the brown haired kid in surprise, he's covering his mouth and trying to supress his laughter.

"What?" He asks confused.

"Nothing, it's just… it's really funny how alike you and Zoro seem to be." Chopper beams at him giddily.

"Come again?" Sanji says flatly. He's nothing like that stupid bastard.

"Well, Zoro's sense of direction is godawful, don't ever let him give you directions. But he always struggled to remember the way to Baby's house, she never lived with us you see. He kept getting lost so she eventually wrote him a song that were really directions from ours to hers, he never forgot after that." Chopper smiles in amusement.

Sanji thinks about that for a moment. That's a little sweet, and a surprisingly amusing and human side to the moss headed idiot.

"Wait- she lives within walking distance? Zoro can't drive, right so…?" He frowns as the thought occurs.

"Cycling distance, but yeah. She still does. We run into her sometimes in the city, though she's often off touring. I wish she'd move because I swear Zoro must see her sometimes, it'd explain why sometimes he comes home after being out and he's miserable and touchy for days." Chopper remarks with an unhappy pout.

"Huh." Sanji remarks because he's got nothing else to say to that.

"Here, I've still got the song if you want to listen to it. I really liked it, it took lots of work though to get it to sound just right. Not that we can use it anymore." Chopper adds, pulling his phone out and bringing the song up.

Sanji's car picks up Chopper's music right away and Baby's song blasts through the speakers so loudly that Chopper has to turn it down on his phone itself.

"Sorry, no volume dial." Sanji apologises, gesturing to the crater where the stereo used to be. The song kicks up, it's fast bluesy guitar, not the kind of thing he's used to associating with Zoro at all. Still, it's played fantastically well so he can easily believe that it is Zoro playing and he supposes that it was Baby who wrote the song, not Zoro, so it stands to reason it might be different.

Baby's voice kicks in and it's deeper and smokier than it was in the video Sanji saw of her as a young teenage girl. Some of it is put on to compliment the style of the music but even so, her voice is different. He resists the urge to close his eyes and listen because he is still driving and he doesn't want them to plunge off the road and die.

"_Right around the corner, that's where my baby stays_

_That's where my baby stays, that's where my baby stays_

_Right around the corner, that's where my baby stays_

_That's where my baby stays, that's where my baby stays_

_And I can get to my honey's house fifteen different ways_

_I can go around the side, I can cut through the back_

_I broke a picket off the fence, or I can squeeze through the crack_

_Right around the corner, that's where my baby stays_

_That's where my baby stays, that's where my baby stays_

_Right around the corner, that's where my baby stays_

_That's where my baby stays, that's where my baby stays_

_And I can get to my honey's house fifteen different ways_

_Right around the corner, that's where my baby stays_

_That's where my baby stays, that's where my baby stays_

_Right around the corner, that's where my baby stays_

_That's where my baby stays, that's where my baby stays_

_And I can get to my honey's house fifteen different ways_

_I consider myself lucky, just as lucky as can be_

_And I wanna thank my baby 'cause he moved so close to me_

_Right around the corner, that's where my baby stays_

_That's where my baby stays, that's where my baby stays_

_Right around the corner, that's where my baby stays_

_That's where my baby stays, that's where my baby stays_

_And I can get to my honey's house fifteen different ways"_

Sanji raises his eyebrows, the song is catchy as hell and not exactly lyrically complicated either, so it's already in his head for life. Still, it doesn't exactly sound like Baby lives that far away at all. Though who knows as the directions aren't exactly clear to him. It makes sense though, she'd hardly want to give away how to get to her home to just anyone. Still, having sung Zoro's songs and heard how much he seems to both want her back and regret having ever met her… it must be hard having her live that close still.

Is he really feeling sympathetic for Zoro? There must be something wrong with his brain right now.

"I think you're more alike than you think." Chopper says after a few moments, his big brown eyes regarding Sanji as he pulls up to the pavement outside campus.

"I don't see it." Sanji says, shaking his head. But… he's not so sure about that now. Not when with each day he's seeing more and more glimpses of Zoro's human side instead of what he suspects is the front that Zoro's put up to keep him and other people away. He sees flickers through the lyrics to the songs and bits of the mask fall off around Usopp.

"You will." Chopper smiles at him, as if reading his mind.

"Thanks for the lift Sanji." The kid adds, hopping out and shutting the door behind him.

"No problem…" Sanji mumbles, watching the kid run off into the campus, surrounded by people much older than him.

Sanji scrubs his hands through his hair. He needs a drink and a think.

He gets lunch in a little café outside town and listens to some of the band's music whilst he drinks his coffee and eats his sandwich. Zoro can be nice, he's seen it. Maybe he just needs to resolve not to rise to the idiot's bait. But he knows in his gut that doing that won't work, he can't resist the urge to argue back when Zoro snaps at him.

He's also promised himself that he won't use any of his ill-gotten knowledge to wound Zoro, not if he wants to stay in the band anyway, which he very much does. Perhaps he should just do what he did this morning, outright challenge Zoro to explain and vocalise just why he's being such a dick. If Zoro is so reasonable and nice then either he can give Sanji a damn good reason and perhaps they can work something out, or else he has to admit that he's just being a dick because he feels like it and then hopefully back off.

It seemed to work this morning. When he called the other man on his bullshit he got the strangest expression and then just ran off mid argument. Perhaps that's the way to deal with that. With that decided he starts the reasonably short drive home, a trip he's managed to memorise enough to do mostly mentally absently.

He takes the time to sing along to something on his phone that isn't Zoro's voice because he'd like to get warmed up for this afternoon and spend a little more time practicing channelling Zoro's messed up emotions into music. It wouldn't do to be able to do it only the once after all would it?

When he arrives home everyone seems to be missing, he can't hear anyone upstairs and the living room is empty too. It's only when he comes into the kitchen does he find Zoro and no one else.

Zoro is sat cross legged on the kitchen counter eating honey out of a jar with a spoon on account of him being an awful human being. Sanji wonders if it was for his voice, sometimes he's ended up with a sore throat after performing something too screamy the night before and honey in drinks has always helped him. Still, he's never eaten it raw before and certainly not from a jar that everyone uses!

Zoro doesn't notice Sanji right away though and the singer can't help but notice that their guitarist actually looks happy. He's smiling around the spoon in a way that speaks of more than just enjoyment of what he's eating. His body looks relaxed and at ease and Sanji almost feels loathe to spoil it.

"Where is everyone?" Sanji asks suspiciously. It is of course possible that Zoro has killed everyone whilst he was out and stuffed their bodies in the kitchen cupboards and now he's just waiting for his final victim. Possible, but unlikely. Zoro didn't really do well with change and he'd have to find new bandmates.

"I'm someone." Zoro reasons lazily, opening his eyes.

Sanji feels his eyebrows quirking disbelievingly. Zoro looks blissed out as fuck, is he on drugs or something?

"You're not everyone." Sanji points out.

"True." Zoro agrees. Wait. He's _agreeing_ now? Something is definitely wrong.

"Are you okay?" he asks suspiciously.

"Yeah. Everyone's downstairs practicing the new song." Zoro answers almost with a purr, flicking the spoon into the sink and sealing the jar of honey.

"New song?" He asks in sudden interest.

"Yep," Zoro nods happily, popping the p sound in his word, "first one in four months."

"Is that why you look so fucking happy then?" Sanji grins. Zoro looks sharply at him then but quickly relaxes, Sanji's words might not have been as nice as they could have been but he's actually happy for Zoro. Seeing him calm and relaxed is a lot better than seeing him bitchy and angry.

Remembering his earlier plan of attack he decides to actually engage the shitty guitarist come songwriter in conversation.

"What does it feel like anyway, writing music I mean?" Sanji asks, genuinely curious as he gets himself a glass of water.

"Fucking great. It lets stuff out like you wouldn't believe. Don't you ever write?" Zoro asks lazily from behind him.

"I've never been able to, and I've never really needed to in my line of work so far." Sanji answers with a shrug. Hey, this counts as an actual conversation.

Zoro doesn't say anything to that but makes a sound in his throat to acknowledge that he heard, he turns back after getting his drink to see Zoro watching him with a relaxed kind of interest that makes Sanji's skin prickle.

"Oh, here. Lyrics." Zoro says, pulling a sheet of paper out of his back pocket and handing it to Sanji.

"Thanks." The singer nods, unfolding it. It's lyrics with the music down as well, just what Sanji needs. There are notes on the paper on how to sing it, where Zoro wants the emphasis and so on.

"I wrote down how I'd sing it but since that's apparently you job now feel free to tweak it or whatever. Or don't. I don't care." Zoro adds a little irritably, returning to his usual self a little more as Sanji reads through the lyrics themselves to Zoro's new song.

That… that bastard.

The song is all about their fight and how they can't stand each other! He even worked the actual words of their argument into it!

"You're an asshole!" He snaps angrily, prompting Zoro to fall into an amused fit of laugher. Sanji scowls and reads the music and lyrics together, even with Zoro's dick move it's actually… actually a pretty catchy song.

He grumbles to himself and reads it over again, humming Zoro's part under his breath to give him a cue as to what kind of feeling to put into the song. He's never had to do this before, to be part of the creation process and sing something for himself rather than simply copying or putting his own spin on something.

Sanji looks up to see Zoro watching him, not happy like before but not scowling either. Just a studious amount of attention that makes Sanji's feel strange. This is a challenge. Zoro is testing to him to see if he can manage this, to sing for himself rather than just do what someone else before him has done. Like hell if he's going to let Zoro win here.

"What are you waiting for then idiot, are we gonna go and give this thing a run through or are we just gonna sit here with you eyeballing me all day?" He challenges back, meeting Zoro's gaze.

The guitarist flashes Sanji's challenge back at him with a predatory grin that fires up every competitive instinct in Sanji's entire body. He wants to show Zoro just how good he is, to make the other man have to break and admit that he was wrong about Sanji's talent. He wants to be better than he's ever been and shove that victory in Zoro's damn face.

He shudders as Zoro leads the way down to the studio. He and Zoro fight constantly and no one in his entire existence infuriates him more than Zoro does, and he grew up with Zeff so that's saying something! As they get closer to the studio Sanji tries to hold onto that feeling, his indecision about whether he wants Zoro to hurl himself off a cliff and leave him alone forever or to just stop being such an ass all the time. Either way how things are now is almost unbearable.

"Are you-" Nami starts to ask as they walk into the studio together in a tense standoffish silence. Neither of them answer her though and instead both walk to the microphone. The both take their places on either side of it as Zoro picks up one of his electric guitars and slings it over his shoulder without breaking the tense eye contact between the two of them.

Sanji stares Zoro down, he's going to show him. Zoro stares right back, the challenge so evident that it couldn't be clearer if he screamed 'impress me then!' right in Sanji's face.

The rest of the band seems a little more hesitant though, clearly not knowing what to make of the intense feeling. Luffy is just fine though, thankfully.

"Come on, play through, don't worry about them." Luffy orders and counts them in with smacks of his drumsticks.

Franky's guitar kicks in first and plays alone for a few seconds before Luffy's drums and Zoro's guitar join him. The speed is a little faster than Sanji had imagined and he reconsiders the pitch that he'd previously planned on singing it, voting to start off a little higher.

"_Midwest love affair_

_I bend when I am bored_

_Late night liquor blue_

_Will lead me to the floor."_

The next lyrics however take him to the words that Zoro all but ripped right out of their argument and Sanji can't help but let the irritation and sarcastic bite creep into his voice and it only takes him a split second to decide not to hold back on it. It was Zoro who had so accused him of feeling nothing wasn't it? Well, if Zoro wanted to know how this felt then he's welcome to it. He'll see if Zoro can take it as well as he can dish it out.

"_Can we fake it?_

_Can we make believe?_

_I'm so full of love _

_It deeply sickens me._

_But all I could do was close my eyes_

_And cross my arms and hope to die_

_Cause you don't fucking listen_

_When I'm around._

_The least you could do is take it back_

_All the vicious remarks and verbal attacks_

_Cause I can't fucking stand it._

_When you're around."_

The chorus finishes and far from seeming cowed the feral grin is back on Zoro's face. He doesn't look unimpressed though. Instead his eyes are shining with energy, challenging and demanding more from Sanji. Sanji cracks his neck in the pause in the song, this next bit is slightly more from Zoro's perspective. It doesn't take a mind reader to work out that it's more to do with how people are reacting to the way that Zoro is treating him. Well too bad, so sad. He's not gonna weep for the fact that their friends are telling Zoro not to be such an ass, maybe he should wise up and _listen_ for crying out loud.

He doesn't take the bite out of his words and continues singing with just as much evil energy as before. He lets it build up with every subsequent line without losing his control, layering on the vocal power and exploiting his skills.

"_Midwest aftermath, the rumours start to rise_

_Did I truly do the things that you've described?_

_They must hate me, every single one_

_It just sickens them, what I consider fun._

_But all I could do was close my eyes_

_And cross my arms and hope to die_

_Cause you don't fucking listen_

_When I'm around._

_The least you could do is take it back_

_All the vicious remarks and verbal attacks,_

_Cause I can't fucking stand it._

_When you're around."_

Zoro is still staring right into him and Sanji refuses to give. The song is coming to its end now, with only another repetition or so of the chorus left but there's this strange feeling rising up that he can't seem to shake. He and Zoro are still all but at each other's throats, but it's creatively rather than destructively. This song feels real in a way that he's not quite felt with any other song before. He's not imagining emotion here, he's using his own, it's real. It's… it's real.

"_But all I could do was close my eyes_

_And cross my arms and hope to die_

_Cause you don't fucking listen_

_When I'm around._

_The least you could do is take it back_

_All the vicious remarks and verbal attacks_

_Cause I can't fucking stand it._

_When you're around."_

Something seems to flash through Zoro's eyes and he leans a little closer to the microphone. Sanji doesn't know how he knows, but he does, Zoro is going to sing. And somehow he also doesn't think that Zoro is about to try to sing over him. Instead when the punk-haired guy sings it's at the same time and speed as him and for once they're listening to each other. Their voices shifting in pitch until they blend together seamlessly into something more powerful than either of their voices alone. Both of them united in the idea that they hate the shit out of the other one. Not exactly the feel-good movie of the year but damn if it doesn't plaster matching sinister grins on both of their faces.

"_No I can't fucking stand it, when you're around._

_No I can't fucking stand it, when you're around."_

The sounds of the instruments final notes hum through the air and there's a moment or two of silence before everyone else seems to come to life and explode in enthusiasm. Everyone seems pleased with how they played and if anyone dropped any notes or screwed anything up Sanji didn't hear it. In fact, he's not sure he heard much outside of Zoro and his guitar.

He pulls his eyes off of the other man, breaking the almost electric contact as he looks around the others. Luffy's enthusiasm is infectious and he can hear Usopp bragging about his perfect work, the whole thing pulls a smile onto Sanji's face. They all seem happy with how everything went for a first run through and even Sanji has to admit that there was something slightly magical about it.

He glances at Zoro and grins at him, earning himself a flash of a smirk in response. Geez, that's almost friendly. Perhaps things between him and Zoro really are turning around, perhaps Usopp was right in his enthusiasm for what a great person the guitarist is. Maybe he's just a little slow to warm to people, that's okay.

"That was great!" Nami cheers, as she enters the room, having left her place in what would usually be Chopper's seat at the recording studio deck.

"A new song will be a great thing to play at the gig this Friday at Loguetown!" She adds happily.

"What?" Zoro says, his voice suddenly flat and dark sliding his guitar off of his shoulder as he stares at Nami in shock.

"A gig, a show. You know, those things that we do where we show up and play music in exchange for money, sound familiar?" Nami answers with a disapproving look at Zoro.

"I understand that but- with HIM?!" Zoro snarls, jabbing his finger in Sanji's face.

Nope. Sanji recalls all of his previous goodwill, Zoro can go take a long walk off a short cliff for all Sanji cares.

"Obviously." Nami says flatly, her hands on her perfect feminine hips.

"You bitch!" the guitarist snarls.

"Oi, I _warned you_ about that." Sanji threatens, grabbing Zoro by the shoulder. He wasn't just going to stand there and let Zoro talk to Nami like that.

Zoro spins and shoves him back, but instead of looking just angry Zoro looks slightly unhinged.

"You STAY OUT of this! You just- you stay out of everything! Why don't you just GO?!" Zoro screams at him advancing towards Sanji and closing the distance with a snarl. Sanji isn't about to back down.

"How about you just calm down you shitty guitarist?!" Sanji argues back.

"No! Calm- I can't even- _tell_ me you haven't told anyone else about this. You have to cancel!" Zoro exclaims turning back to Nami.

"Like I would, we've already sold loads of tickets. People are talking about it online, lots of people are excited to see what our new singer is like." Nami adds, smiling at Sanji who finds himself blushing at her attention.

"You… online?! Fuck." Zoro trails off going pale. Sanji squints at him and thinks that Zoro almost looks like he's afraid. God he knows that Zoro handles change badly and the idea of playing a real gig with him probably makes it much more real that Baby is gone but he's not sure it deserves this reaction.

"What exactly are you so scared of?" Sanji challenges, snapping Zoro's attention back to him.

"I'm not SCARED! As if I would be!" Zoro yells, catching the front of Sanji's shirt in his fist.

"So what's your problem then?" He pushes back.

"You're my problem, just leave the band. Just quit." The guitarist demands, wild eyed and crazy looking.

"Like hell." Sanji says flatly. Zoro shoves him back, making Sanji stumble slightly.

"This gig is not happening." Zoro declares and storms off.

Sanji dusts himself off and scowls. So much for progress. If anything Zoro seems to be crazier and angrier than ever. The door to the studio slams loudly, making everyone wince.

"Well, that went well." Robin sighs, folding her hands in her lap.

Zoro has fucked off to who knows where but he's done the courtesy of kicking a gigantic hole in Sanji's bedroom door and locking Sanji's door to their shared bathroom from the inside. Sanji has no idea where Zoro is but he's going to track him down and kick his teeth in for this. He's got no right to behave this crazily, not when everyone puts up with his shit so well, and talking like that to Nami when she's just trying to do her goddamn job! It's out of line is what it is.

He stalks angrily through the house, no one stops him, but he doesn't find Zoro. On some kind of instinct he goes out to the garage and finds that Zoro has done him the favour of letting the air out of all four of his tyres. Sanji snarls and only just has time to react when a flash of movement in the corner of his vision alerts him to the fact that Zoro is _still here_.

The guitarist slams Sanji against his own car, both fists curling into the front of Sanji's nice shirt.

"Quit the band!" Zoro snarls, so close to Sanji's face that he can only just look at Zoro without going cross eyed.

"Like HELL. I don't care what your issues are Zoro, you need to grow the fuck up and deal with shit and stop being so fucking _mental_!" Sanji shouts right back, wriggling out of Zoro's grip.

"I'm not mental!" Zoro snaps back, in his face again.

"Then what's your fucking problem?!" Sanji demands, kicking at him and shoving him away. Sanji leans his weight off of his car now that he's got the room. With no air in his tyres he hardly wants to put pressure on the wheels.

"You're my problem! Just leave the band!" Zoro yells at him, inexplicably angry.

Sanji grits his teeth and remembers his earlier resolution. Don't accuse, don't lash out, make Zoro actually say what's up and call him on it if he doesn't.

"Give me one good reason and I might consider it. Why do you want me to leave?" He questions, sounding a shade calmer than he really is. That seems to startle Zoro into some emotion that's a little less violent.

"What?" Zoro says in a confused voice.

"Why?" Sanji repeats.

"Just go. We're not doing this show, so just… just go." Zoro answers in something closer to a speaking voice.

Ah, so it definitely is about the show then. Because Zoro had been starting to warm up to him beforehand, there's no way he was imagining that.

"What's so important about the show? Why are you so suddenly desperate to get rid of me?" He questions suspiciously.

"I'm not _suddenly_ anything. Did you miss the part where I've hated you since I met you, where I've locked you out of your room to make you leave? Or that time I filled your car with spiders?" Zoro argues and just the _mention_ of that makes Sanji's skin crawl. They were fake most of them but somehow Zoro had managed to throw a few real ones in there too and that had been worse, picking them up and then suddenly finding out that it WASN'T plastic.

He has no idea how Zoro found out about his bug phobia, perhaps just a lucky guess but he loathes him for it. Zoro gives him a feral smirk with threatening teeth behind it and that reminds Sanji just what's going on here, Zoro's trying to distract him which means that there's something worth diverting him from there.

"Yeah, only you were happy when I got back. Writing songs and playing, don't tell me you didn't feel that. Everything worked perfectly, and don't tell me I don't have talent because you and I both know that isn't true and don't insult us both by saying that." Sanji points out sternly and that makes Zoro's jaw click shut as he looks away.

"Look, I can find you another band to play with. Just not this one, just don't do the show and just… just go. Please." Zoro adds, closing his eyes.

"What are you so scared of with this show, with me staying in the band? What's wrong?" Sanji presses because Zoro's expression right now has more than just a note of dread in it. Though not after Sanji's spoken, then it's all rage.

"Like I'd ever be scared of YOU!" He yells furiously, the expression so overt that it just makes Sanji roll his eyes.

"So what then? What do you think is going to happen here? What are you trying to avoid?" He presses. He suspects that he knows. He suspects that Zoro thinks that it's going to be like Baby all over again, that the gig will somehow end up with him leaving. Perhaps the two of them gelling so well in practice just then wasn't a good thing, perhaps it's too much like how he used to play with Baby. But he can't just assume that, he needs Zoro to say it.

"Go fuck yourself." Zoro snaps instead, darting around Sanji to grab his bike and peddle off into the night.

Sanji sighs. Zoro is messed up. But it's a done deal, he's not going anywhere and the gig is clearly going to happen if they've already started selling tickets. He highly doubts that Zoro will actually abandon the band and leave them without a guitarist, though even if he does they've got enough guitarist to about pull through.

He hunts down Franky's tyre pump and starts to refill his tyres, hoping that Zoro's not done any real damage to his wheels or his suspension. Zoro's just going to have to dig deep to find his balls and _deal_ with this situation.

The songs for this chapter are "Right around the corner" by the Detroit Cobras and "When you're around" by Motion City Soundtrack.


	5. Chapter 5

Luckily for Zoro, Sanji's car proves to be okay despite the entirely uncalled for tyre deflation. The idiot didn't come home all night despite Nami and Usopp both texting him and asking if he's okay, the others all seemed resigned to Zoro's vanishing act. Apparently Zoro frequently does this sort of thing.

Sanji is cooking breakfast the next morning, gently singing the song that Zoro wrote the day before. Despite everything he does actually like the song, it's amusing. The others all filter down in time, Robin first as she's an early riser, followed by Usopp who seems to be having trouble sleeping lately. Sanji suspects that he's anxious about the wedding, which is sweet. Usopp is gone almost as soon as he came though, merely grabbing some pastries and leaving again, apparently he has wedding business to attend to.

One by one everyone else filters downstairs as Sanji lays out more breakfast, this time a more continental style breakfast with toast, fresh yoghurt with fresh fruit, croissants and other pastries.

"Oh Zoro, again?" Franky sighs despairingly, making Sanji's ears prick up as he searches the fridge for the cold cuts of meat that he's sure he bought the other day when Nami sent him shopping.

"It's not my fault." Zoro mumbles from somewhere near the table.

"You gotta stop getting in bar fights every time something upsets you, bro. It's not healthy." Franky says with an almost motherly clucking tone to his voice.

"I'm fine, just- ow!" Zoro yelps from behind Franky.

Sanji frowns, he suspects that Luffy has eaten the cold cuts at some point when he wasn't supervising the fridge so he returns to the table empty handed. To be entirely honest he really wants to see what's happened to Zoro.

Sanji leans around Franky to get a good look at Zoro, his eyes nearly fall out of his head in shock when he sees him. The guitarist as a split and swollen lower lip and a black eye, he must have gotten some ice on it pretty quick as it's not swollen too badly, though it's all red and purple. Sanji wonders what lucky guy in a bar got to punch Zoro that hard to leave a shiner that strong.

"Zoro! What about the wedding photos?! What about the show?!" Nami screeches, leaning over the table yanking Zoro's chin towards her.

"Don't get your panties in a knot. It'll be gone by the wedding, black eyes take ten days to heal tops. Anyway, I heal quick, you know that." Zoro mutters, pulling away from her and wrapping his arms around himself. He looks… small somehow. Which is stupid because Zoro's obviously not any smaller. But… it almost looks like some part of Zoro is dimmer than before, like some of his fire has been snuffed out.

"The gig is this Friday, that's three days time Zoro. What about then, huh? You don't think these things through, you're so goddamn selfish sometimes!" Nami snaps at him. Sanji… Sanji wants to think that she's justified for berating the guitarist but Zoro just looks so different than usual that he can't quite bring himself to feel it.

"I can still play with a bruised face Nami." Zoro sighs.

"So you have agreed to do the show, good." The redhead nods officially.

Zoro doesn't argue back, he just shrugs weakly, after all there's nothing he can do about it. Zoro ducks out under Franky's arm and disappears out of the room. Sanji frowns and chases after him, ignoring Franky's calls after him to not fight Zoro.

He spots the guitarist on the stairs, clearly trying to head up to their floor. Zoro pauses and regards him flatly, looking entirely uninterested in whatever it is that Sanji has to say. Not that Sanji has any idea what he came out here to say in the first place. Some strange impulse drew him out here but helpfully has abandoned him now that he's actually here. In lieu of any actual plan he just blurts out the first thing to come to mind.

"Are you okay?" He calls.

"What the hell do you care?" Zoro snorts and continues walking.

"I care. And I don't mean your face, I mean you. You seem kinda… off." He answers. And it's true, Zoro seems even more watered down than he did before talking to Nami.

"Why do you care? I'm a jerk to you, I'm trying to make you leave." The guitarist frowns at him, though the expression lacks malice.

"Yeah, you are. But I'm not going anywhere, and since I'm not a complete jerkbag I'm a little weirded out by this. You look like someone's ripped your soul out or something." Sanji replies, starting up the stairs after Zoro. The guitarist has frozen however and stays stock still on the step that he's on.

Zoro turns to look at him after a few seconds, leaving Sanji a few steps below, looking up at him. Zoro's expression is troubled but still worn.

"What do you need me to say to make you go away?" Zoro asks wearily, his eyes shut.

"Tell me that you're alright." The singer answers quietly. He doesn't like this strange injured version of Zoro. Not that he likes the regular Zoro all that much either, the Zoro he likes is the one lost in his own music, the one that challenges him and makes him better. Sadly he doesn't get to see that one all that often.

"Then you'll leave the band?" Zoro blinks in surprise, some of the numbness that Zoro's showing seems to fall away then.

"No, asshole. Tell me that you're alright and I'll let you… go wherever it was you were going before I got here. To your room or wherever." Sanji snorts, as if Zoro getting rid of him would be that easy.

"I was going to my room to meditate, it makes me feel better." The guitarist grumbles, apparently unhappy at being disabused of the idea that saying he's okay would make Sanji quit the band.

"Well, do you want breakfast? Seeing as you just came down and disappeared without grabbing any." He suggests. God, this conversation is so weird. It's not like he and Zoro are friends or anything but both of them seem to have temporarily forgotten that, they're having a perfectly non-hostile conversation. Sanji is surer and surer that he doesn't like this at all. Something is _wrong_ here.

"No." The guitarist says, shaking his head and continuing up the stairs.

Sanji's stupid body propels him forward again and makes him reach out to grab the back of Zoro's shirt.

"Tell me that you're alright." He says.

"Yeah, everything is alright." Zoro answers looking over his shoulder and heading up.

"Those aren't the same!" Sanji calls after him again, but this time Zoro doesn't stop.

Sanji returns to the kitchen thoughtfully and notices the rest of his bandmates looking at him when he returns, well, except Luffy who is busy inhaling food but that's nothing new.

"Oh-ho, I think our singer and guitarist are getting on a little better. I didn't hear any shouting at all there!" Brook laughs melodically.

"Yeah, I'm a little worried about Zoro. He seems all weird." Sanji frowns, taking a seat at the table and helping himself to food.

"Zoro is like that sometimes, I find it's best just to leave him to it." Robin advises him sagely over the top of her coffee cup.

"I'm sure you're right my lovely Robin!" Sanji agrees with a happy chirp but deep down he's struggling to shake the feeling that something is wrong.

He eats his food slowly, defending it from Luffy as necessary and listens to Nami and Robin discussing their beautiful bridesmaid's dresses. Even the ever cool Robin seems excited for Usopp's big day. He hopes that it'll be really nice for him, he's looking forward to seeing all the pictures.

He clears up the bomb site that is breakfast and becomes thankful that Nami is actually paying him for this because it's certainly far more work than he'd anticipated. Still, he likes that he gets to spend time with his new friends, to see them interact and knowing that he's set them up nutritionally for the day. It's kinda dorky but that's how he feels about it.

He heads upstairs to the top floor, telling himself that he's going to his own room. He drops all pretence of that though when he spots that Zoro's door is open. He peeks around the edge to see Zoro sitting in the middle of his bed, his white acoustic guitar in his lap. His eyes are shut and his breathing is slow, he really does seem to be mediating.

Sanji's eyes go to the acoustic. He's seen it in videos before of course, but never actually heard Zoro play it in person. It was his dead sister's guitar and it seems incredibly special to him. He hesitates at the door and quietly steps back into his own room, leaving his door open too. He doesn't want to disturb the other man but he wants to see what he does as well.

Come lunchtime Zoro has done nothing at all, he's not moved a goddamn muscle, he's just sitting there with his eyes shut "meditating" or whatever. Sanji isn't convinced that he's not just sleeping. Sanji huffs and gives up, clearly whatever interesting thing is going on is entirely inside Zoro's insufferably thick skull.

Sanji serves up lunch not long after and the rest of the band except for Usopp sit around eating and talking. Zoro is sprawled in his ludicrously large beanbag on the floor as the band sits in the extensive living room of their mansion planning how the gig is going to go. Sanji should really be trying to focus on what the others are talking about, they're discussing song choices, lighting, audio setups and so on. But he can't quite focus, his attention is all on Zoro's lifeless sprawl.

The other man has spent all morning meditating but he still looks dead, there's no energy in his body at all and if it wasn't for the slow breathing that Sanji can see he'd almost be concerned that Zoro was actually a corpse. Though the other man is clearly on his way to becoming one, he didn't eat a breakfast and he's not eating now, frankly it's pissing Sanji off.

He knows that Zoro is pissed about the gig, or he was at least, right now he's not even putting up a fight to it being organised right in front of him. And he knows that Zoro apparently lost a fight. But this doesn't seem like bruised ego or grudging acceptance, something else is going on here and it's really wrong.

"You know I'm working Friday night." Zoro finally speaks, tilting his head to look at Nami, affording Sanji a view of his painful looking black eye.

"Someone's going to have to pick you up, driving quickly you can make it across the city in time." Nami agrees, flicking her gorgeous orange hair.

"Sanji should pick him up." Luffy states from his spot on the top of the back of Nami's armchair. It's the highest point in the room and he seems to like it up there.

"Wait, what? But if they get held up then we have no singer at all. Franky could fill in for Zoro if need be, Robin should be the one to-" Nami starts, tilting her head back to look at Luffy with a frown.

"No. Sanji picks him up." Luffy declares, and it's final.

"I know where Zoro works, and I know where Loguetown is, I can make the drive." Sanji confirms.

"I knew you could do it." Luffy grins happily.

Zoro shrugs and drops his head back onto the beanbag again. Sanji scowls, really, Zoro's not going to fight that at all? He stares at the guitarist and watches his slow breathing. He's so focused that he doesn't even hear Usopp come in the door until the others greet him. Zoro's converse shod feet tense, the white toe caps jerking up anxiously as the guitarist digs his heels into the floor. Sanji's curled eyebrow quirks in interest.

Usopp is carrying long purple dresses in his hands in clear protective wraps, he hands one carefully to Robin and the other to Nami, earning exclamations of joy from both. Nami holds hers up to her body and twirls whilst Robin lifts up the plastic on hers to feel the silky purple fabric with a smile.

"We _have_ to try these on!" Nami squeals, grabbing Robin and pulling the smiling woman from the room with her. Usopp heaves a relieved and happy sigh.

"Well, I really hope that they fit or else I-OH MY GOD ZORO YOUR FACE!" Usopp shrieks as he catches sight of Zoro.

The keyboardist hurls himself at Zoro, nearly throwing them both off of the beanbag and Sanji watches in amusement as someone else finally reacts appropriately and Zoro tries to squirm away from under him.

"Your eye! What happened? Does it hurt?" Usopp questions in a panic.

"OUCH! It does if you POKE IT!" Zoro snaps, falling off onto the floor inadvertently taking Usopp with him in a tangle of limbs.

"And your lip, Zoro! What happened?" Usopp gasps, pawing at Zoro.

"Get offa me!" Zoro grunts, shoving at Usopp from the floor.

"Not until you tell me what happened!" The keyboardist huffs in a show of bravery that Sanji hasn't seen before in the other man.

"I got punched in the face, obviously." The guitarist grumbles, his head dropping back to the floor in surrender. Usopp gingerly touches around Zoro's bruised up eye and Sanji feels a flash of envy for the way Zoro tolerates that from Usopp when the guitarist seems so averse to even being within the same room as Sanji.

"But why?" Usopp questions with a frown, as if he can't possibly fathom why anyone would ever want to punch Zoro in the face.

"Doesn't matter, it was my fault." He sighs unhappily.

"Zoro, how is it your fault if someone punched you?" the musician sighs. This seems to be the wrong thing to say because Zoro shifts under Usopp's weight.

"Can we not do this?" Zoro mutters sitting up and making the keyboardist slide into his lap.

"I don't want to talk about it." Zoro adds, standing up and stalking off out of the room tensely.

"When did he come back like that?" Usopp asks, looking around at the others.

"Eh, this morning. You know what he's like with bar fights, we really shouldn't let him go out drinking unsupervised, he's never a violent drinker with us. He doesn't pick fights when we're about." Franky sighs in a bored tone, kicking his bare feet up onto the sofa arm.

"I don't understand, it's been months since this happened." Usopp says pitifully from the floor, a crease of confusion forming between his eyebrows.

"With Sanji joining he just needed to let off some steam. Don't worry about it Usopp." Luffy says, leaping down off of Nami's vacated chair and slapping Usopp on the shoulder reassuringly. Sanji frowns, he doesn't like the idea that Zoro went out and got into a fight and lost because of him.

Usopp looks up at Sanji and watches him for a second before shaking his head.

"No, but I think another singer might be behind this." Usopp growls, sounding fiercely protective.

"Baby? But isn't she on tour right now?" Brook asks in surprise, piquing Sanji's attention.

"Yeah, but her tour's swung back through town. It's got a break in the middle and she's been back for a few days. I bet you anything Zoro knows that or he's run into her. Goddamnit, whenever she's around Zoro starts acting reckless and gets himself hurt." Usopp snaps angrily, running his fingers through his thick curly hair as he stands up.

"I don't think there's anything you can do about it Usopp-bro, Zoro's just gotta deal." Franky says sagely.

Usopp makes a frustrated noise in his throat that suggests that he's not happy with that idea at all. Sanji stands up and shrugs, it's none of his business really. He picks up the plates of food that are left and balancing them carefully takes them back to the kitchen.

He puts all of the leftovers onto a plate and can't help but notice that there's just enough for one more person to eat. Just enough for the one person who didn't eat a thing at lunch, well, besides Usopp that is. He should go and offer it to the keyboardist but his feet pull him in the direction of the hallway instead, he tilts his head and listens. He hears a metallic clang come from the direction of the garage and follows it with the plate of food in hand.

Zoro is sprawled in the middle of the garage, picking up the array of spanners and wrenches he's evidently just knocked down. His hands are quick and energetic as he scoops them up, muttering agitated under his breath. Zoro's eyes flick up to see him and instantly scowl.

"Go away." Zoro says with more energy than he's managed all day.

"Glad to hear you sound a little more normal. Promise to eat this and I'll happily leave you to your swearing and… whatever the fuck it is that you're doing out here." Sanji shrugs, offering the plate.

Zoro straightens up, spinning a wrench in one hand and drumming on his thigh with a spanner with the other. In stark contrast to the energy-sapped Zoro that was sprawled practically dead all over the living room floor earlier, this Zoro seems to be practically vibrating with energy. It doesn't feel like the good kind though, it looks like nervous anxious energy.

If Sanji was going to guess, and he was, he'd say that being questioned on exactly how he got his face punched in made him anxious. That's interesting but not especially enlightening, is there more to it than Sanji knows about or does the moss head just not like discussing how he got his ass handed to him in a fight? Man, Sanji would have given anything to have been there when whoever decked Zoro did that. Though he supposes he's already watched that video of Baby slapping Zoro into next week, though he can't watch that again really, not now that he knows the whole story about what happened.

"I'm not hungry." Zoro says dismissively, and turns back to his bike, crouching down and replacing the tools in a case on the floor.

"Bullshit, you didn't have breakfast either this morning. You've eaten nothing all day." Sanji frowns, leaning on the bonnet of his car and staring and Zoro's back. Zoro is leaning in and unscrewing the cap to his bike wheel.

"I wasn't hungry then and I'm not hungry now, so go away." The guitarist snipes with a flick of a glare over his shoulder.

"You're hardly going to heal that shiner on your face if you don't eat something to keep your energy up, are you?" Sanji points out, changing his tactics.

"Oh fuck!" Zoro hisses.

Sanji walks his way around to Zoro and sees that the other man has chewed on his lip enough to re-open the cut on it. Blood is flowing from his lip and down to his chin.

"Here." Sanji offers, crouching down and offering him the napkin from under the plate that he was carrying.

Zoro shoots him a distrustful look but takes it anyway, pressing it to the bleeding cut.

"Are you alright?" Sanji asks once more.

"Haven't we done this already today?" Zoro sighs wearily.

"So give me a reason to end this discussion, convince me that you're okay. Start by eating for one, and not looking like you're swinging from coma patient to energiser bunny in terms of energy levels. Those aren't the marks of someone who's okay." He reasons. Zoro's eyes slide guiltily to the side and he pretends to be interested in his bike again as he presses the napkin to his bleeding lip.

"Why do you care anyway? What kind of sick fuck keeps going back to someone who's clearly trying to hurt them?" Zoro says in a flat voice, his eyes dark and angry.

"Someone who knows that they don't mean it." Sanji shrugs. Zoro looks at him wide eyed with shock, not saying anything. Zoro grimaces as he pulls the bloodied tissue away and stares down at the red spread on it, he tongues the reopened cut on his lip, it seems to have stopped bleeding now.

"And suppose you're wrong?" Zoro says softly, his eyes still on his own blood.

"I'm not. You're acting like an asshole and a jerk but you're not either really I don't think. Well, you might be kind of a jerk." He reasons.

Zoro watches him with dark eyes and Sanji swears that he sees a glimmer of hopelessness in there, something inside him reaching out. But Zoro looks away and it's gone.

"We've got a show to do soon and we can't do it without you, so deal with whatever this is and eat." Sanji demands, pushing the plate into Zoro's hands.

Sanji stands up, having accomplished his mission to deliver food to Zoro.

"I'm not alright." Zoro says, so quietly that Sanji almost doesn't hear it. He sits back down, Zoro is studiously avoiding his gaze.

"Is this because of Baby being back in town? Usopp said she was." Sanji asks softly. Zoro nods once, sharply.

"I've never been in this kind of situation but… you don't need her. You're writing again, you've got your band and you'd better believe I'm gonna drag your ass to shows so people can hear your music. I may not like you an awful lot, on account of your aforementioned jerkiness, but I'd be dumb to ignore the fact that you've got talent. Things might be complicated where she's concerned but… you'll be alright." Sanji says as quickly as possible because this is all straying way too far into feelings territory.

He stands up awkwardly and scratches the back of his neck. Zoro hasn't said a word and that's just weird.

"Someday you'll be fine." He offers, touching Zoro's shoulder awkwardly as he walks out of the garage, leaving the moss-head to sit on the ground staring into the distance. As he leaves Sanji hears a distant metallic crash and scrambling but he doesn't go back, the manic guitarist can deal with his own shit.

When Sanji comes back inside the house any thoughts that he had about Zoro are swiftly chased out of his mind when he catches sight of Nami and Robin, both have changed into the dresses that Usopp brought home and… well… lovely doesn't even do them justice. The cut of each tress is different, Robin's is a backless affair that drapes loosely from her neck and only makes its way around to her back at a scandalously low point. The whole thing seems to float silkily like a dream. Nami's on the other hand is tight across her top and back, a cinched in corset type affair which emphasises her considerable bust, this one flares out playfully at her waist.

Both of them look more beautiful than Sanji could ever imagine.

He explodes into gushing praise that actually manages to make both ladies blush. In fairness the others all seem very impressed with the dresses too.

Eventually Nami giggles and pulls Robin upstairs, saying that they shouldn't wear the dresses for too long as they've still got the wedding to deal with. Sanji flutters bonelessly into the sofa with a wistful sigh, he's so fortunate to be surrounded by such gorgeous beauties.

"Hey Franky, what's wrong with Sanji?" Luffy pipes up loudly.

"You want a list?" Franky chuckles, poking Sanji teasingly in the stomach.

Zoro proceeds to be less than useful all day, he gets under Franky's feet in the garage by fiddling with his bike and then under Sanji's feet by suddenly deciding to clean the oven. It doesn't help that Zoro actually manages to set the oven cleaner on fire leading to Sanji having to locate and use the fire extinguisher he boots Zoro out of the kitchen to go be highly strung elsewhere.

Every time he sees Zoro he seems to be humming with nervous energy, even if he's sitting down his feet are moving around all antsy. Much to Sanji's confusion this seems to be accepted as relatively normal amongst the rest of the band, even Usopp who was so concerned about Zoro's injuries seems to be entirely unfazed by Zoro's apparent hyperactive-mania.

Sanji can't help it, Zoro's behaviour is so odd and his admission of being not okay is so jarring that he can't help but think about the guitarist. Should he find the other man again and try to calm him down or make him feel better? Zoro didn't seem especially keen on that idea earlier, but then he had admitted that he wasn't okay. Was that as much of an invitation as he was going to get? Should he say something to Usopp? The keyboard player certainly knows him better than Sanji does and is probably better equipped to handle Zoro's apparently wildly swinging moods. But it wasn't Usopp that Zoro confessed to, was it? It was him.

Sanji sighs to himself. Zoro is clearly more messed up than he thought, but he can hardly talk as he's the one relenting and hunting the other man down. A thorough scouring of the house reveals Zoro to be in the studio downstairs.

He peers around the door and sees Zoro sprawled across another bean bag, he seems to be fond of them somehow. Zoro's foot is still jigging nervously, his fingers running twitchily along the guitar frets. Zoro suddenly sings, absently and not especially tunefully, as if he's trying the lyrics on for size.

_"Tell me that you're alright,_

_Yeah everything is alright._

_Oh please tell me that you're alright,_

_Yeah everything is alright."_

Sanji smiles despite himself, Zoro seems to be using his words again.

"You're writing again?" He asks, coming around the door. Zoro jolts up and looks at him, accidentally scratching down the guitar strings with a fingernail and making a sound through the amplifier that makes them both wince.

Zoro shrugs soundlessly and falls back into his bean bag again. Sanji doesn't know if he should stay or go, Zoro pulls a tune from his guitar and hums along under his breath, putting melody to his earlier words.

"I wanted to see if you were okay, you still seem really… highly strung I guess." Sanji offers from his place by the door.

"Anxious? Stressed? Nervous?" Zoro suggests, but Sanji isn't quite sure if the guitarist is talking to him as the other man isn't even looking in his direction and is instead staring right up at the ceiling. He sings and plays again, softly and slightly sadly, the tune still the same but with the notes stretched out it has a melancholy feel to it.

_"I'm sick of the things I do when I'm nervous_

_Like cleaning the oven or checking my tires_

_Or counting the number of tiles in the ceiling,_

_Head for the hills, the kitchen's on fire"_

"Oi, look at me." He orders, stepping closer and kicking Zoro's foot. This actually does get Zoro's full attention.

"What?" Zoro scowls at him and Sanji is struck again by the dichotomy between the vulnerability he hears in Zoro's music and the prickly reality of the man in person. Sanji is starting to suspect that the Zoro in the music is the real one and that this one is just a way of keeping people out, a way of convincing everyone else that he's fine when he's not. And from his lyrics Sanji doesn't think that Zoro wants to stay like that anymore.

"This self-medication with music and meditation thing might work for you and… and if you're okay with that then fine or whatever. But if you need to talk to someone or just admit that you're not okay and you need help then you should. Talk to any of us, even me." Sanji offers, crouching down to where Zoro sits.

"Why aren't you just leaving me alone? Do I actually need to set fire to your room or something for you to leave?" Zoro asks defensively.

"Told you, not going anywhere, you can just deal with it. You can keep expecting me to go but you're gonna be disappointed. If you're doing this to make me leave so I can't abandon you you're being pretty transparent and messed up about it." Sanji says flatly.

"AS IF! How screwed up do you think I am?!" Zoro squawks indignantly, scrambling to sit up and stare at Sanji wide eyed.

"Good." Sanji grins, enjoying Zoro's fervent denial.

"Well, like I said. If this stops working for you, you know where I am. Being honest with other people isn't that hard you know." He shrugs, standing up. Zoro watches him silently and Sanji figures that the other man has nothing else to say, at least not right now. He straightens up and heads for the door.

"Sanji." Zoro says, so softly that Sanji isn't sure that he heard it and has to stick his head back in the room to check.

"I guess… you're not… all bad. Maybe." The guitarist grudgingly admits, his scowl still present on his face.

"Wow, think I better go lie down after getting told something like that. Careful with those compliments there Zoro, you might give me a heart attack." He grins back.

"Asshole." Zoro growls.

"Moss-fucker." Sanji shoots back.

"Swirly-faced bastard." Zoro retorts.

"Dick-bag." Sanji smirks, quite enjoying this argument.

"Heheh, you're alright." Zoro grins brightly, falling back onto his beanbag and strumming idly.

"Show up to dinner, idiot, I don't want to have to drag you to the table." Sanji warns and leaves with a smile on his face.

Sanji returns to the kitchen and gets started on dinner, he's doing a slow cooked bolognaise, leaving the mince to cook in the oven within the sauce so that it's oh so tender. He fries onions, makes his own sauce with peppers and tomatoes and makes garlic bread. He assembles some bruschetta and leaves it to the side ready to pop in the oven for a few moments right before serving, he makes a gorgeous Italian salad with olives sundried tomatoes on top and through all of the preparation he's humming to himself. It's only after a half an hour of repeating the same two refrains over and over again that he realises he's humming the incomplete song that he'd just heard Zoro writing.

When the band gathers for dinner Zoro seems a little less dead but instead entirely distracted, he hardly pays attention to any of the barbs that Sanji throws his way and all but completely ignores the others trying to talk to him. Sanji notices that Zoro is pretty much only eating with one hand, his other forming what look like chord patterns against the table, Zoro is still writing music in his head.

As soon as Zoro's fork hits his finished plate he yells out a sincere sounding thank you for the food and dashes back off downstairs.

"I suppose we're practicing the set then? Though Zoro seems like he's writing." Robin notes thoughtfully, dabbing her mouth daintily with a napkin.

"Two songs in the same week? When was the last time that happened?" Brook remarks in surprise.

"A few years at least, it seems he's feeling inspired at the moment." Robin smiles, her gaze landing on Sanji in a way that makes the hairs on the back of Sanji's neck stand on end nervously.

"We'd better go practice." Sanji squeaks nervously and makes his escape from the room. He's not sure why that made him uncomfortable but… somehow he doesn't want to stick around for that conversation.

He sneaks his way back into the studio with a silent sigh and smiles at the vision of Zoro standing there with his eyes shut and a studious frown on his face as he plays through a catchier and more complex version of the melody that Sanji had heard him play earlier. He takes the opportunity to settle into Zoro's bean bag, knowing full well that it'll irk the other man when he sees Sanji in his place.

Zoro pauses mid chord, frowns and goes back a few bars and plays again, this time with a slightly different note. Sanji can't say for sure what he changed but this version sounds a little better. Zoro nods to himself and kneels down to make a note on some paper.

"I think… I think it's done." Zoro remarks, looking up at Sanji and handing him the lyrics. This time there's a lot less musical direction and Sanji wonders if Zoro is starting to trust his judgement a little more with music.

Franky and Usopp come in and Zoro hands them their sheets of music which the two musicians regard with interest.

"Should we give this a play through? It looks good Zoro!" Usopp smiles brightly.

"No! We're practicing the set list, we don't have time to work out new songs!" Nami orders them. Her word is law of course so the other bastards grumble unhappily and move to their instruments. Sanji does no such thing and obediently takes his place at the microphone even if he is secretly a little disappointed at missing the opportunity to hear Zoro's new song fully played through.

Practice starts and the set begins with the new song "When You're Around" then it slows down a little to "Hum Along" and "Mutiny Below", the set progresses through a range of other songs before finishing on the first song Sanji ever sung for them, "Lake Pontchartrain".

It feels good to sing for that long and they move flawlessly from song to song, all wonderfully in synch. So much so that when they finish Sanji is more than a little tired. Even so it wasn't a perfect practice, whilst there is nothing at all wrong with Zoro's playing the guitarist seems distracted still and Sanji would bet all the money in his wallet right now that Zoro's mind is elsewhere, probably on that new song of his.

"That was good, again!" Nami orders them through the speakers, from the place by Chopper's side through the glass.

Sanji drinks a solid amount of water to soothe his tired throat and the band launches through the whole set again. By the time they're done all of them are looking pretty tired, they've been playing almost non-stop for hours, so it's to be expected.

"Well… I'm gonna go call Kaya and then maybe go to bed." Usopp mumbles, stepping away from his keyboard as he rolls his shoulder and cracks his knuckles.

"Might go tinker with my car and then do the same." Franky agrees with a nod.

"You're gonna call Kaya too?" Luffy chirps, jumping over the drum kit evidently entirely wide awake. Sanji squints at him and swallows thickly, he's not sure that Luffy is human.

He downs some water and seriously considers raiding that honey supply of Zoro's that he saw the other man eating from. His throat feels sore and tired from singing so hard for so long and the last thing that he wants to do it wear out his voice before the actual gig.

Zoro doesn't say what he's going to do but from the way he drops down into his bean bag again and starts pouring over the written music for his new song Sanji suspects that he's going to stay there and keep writing. If nothing else Sanji has to admire the work ethic Zoro has when he comes to his music.

The band disperses and Sanji takes the opportunity to sneak some of Zoro's honey, it feels glorious going down his throat raw, so soothing and sweet. He mixes some with a mug of boiled water and heads upstairs to read before going to sleep.

He's been reading An Abundance of Katherines by John Green and it's a good book, still, he's finding it a little hard to settle into it. He skips back a few pages just to refresh himself as to where he was but even then he finds that he has trouble concentrating.

He shuffles around on his bed in case it's just that he's uncomfortable, he tries reading again but still his mind is elsewhere. He shifts onto his front and feels something crackle in his pocket. Curiously he puts his book down and pulls out the contents of his pocket, he unfolds the piece of paper and places his finished drink on the floor.

Ah, it's the lyrics to Zoro's new song. He scans through them but he's having a hard time placing how it should be sung without quite knowing the music. He's got an idea of the notes from what he's heard Zoro play but he's no idea about the speed or the tone.

The lyrics themselves are pulled from his conversation with Zoro and from Zoro's own mind, it seems to be almost conversational in that it's written sort of from his perspective and from Zoro's. Yet it's all down as being sung by him, though Zoro's joining in for the chorus. He doesn't know whether he should sing this soft and melancholy or whether he should be a little more upbeat.

He fidgets uncomfortably on his bed for a few moments. Zoro's not back in his room yet so maybe he's still downstairs in the studio. Maybe… maybe the two of them can run through the song. Not to practice it or anything but just so that he has a tune to go with the words in his head, just so that he can put them to rest is all.

He hops off of his bed and, lyrics in hand, hurries down all of the stairs in the mansion and makes his way inside the studio. He has to admit that he's kind of pleased to find that he's not the only one to break to temptation and return. Luffy is already here, along with Usopp.

He holds up the lyrics by way of explanation and Zoro grins at him. Sanji sidles over to his microphone and watches Zoro surreptitiously through his fringe, that black eye still makes him wince to look at. He wonders just what it was that Zoro did to get in a fight with someone to make them do that to him.

"Hey, I guess I'm late to the party." Franky laughs as he comes into the room.

"I couldn't resist." He adds, holding up his own sheet of bass music.

With a little direction from Luffy they start to play, Sanji tries to pick the tune up as they go but the first time through sounds really awkward and off-key. The second time through is a little better as people settle into their parts and by trial number three Sanji is singing the words entirely as he's supposed to.

However… the feeling of rightness that he felt with the last song of Zoro's isn't there, the magic isn't happening for some reason and the scowl on Zoro's face informs Sanji that he's not the only one feeling that.

"Gimme, it's not right." Zoro grumbles, holding his hand out for everyone to give their music sheets back and one by one they do. Not that Sanji needs his now, he's memorised it.

"The feeling is wrong, it's too calm or something. Or the words aren't done right or… something!" Zoro scowls, dropping to the floor and spreading the sheets out, staring down at them as if he keep eye contact with them long enough they'll give in and work.

"Try not to stay up all night. You need to sleep, remember?" Usopp sighs leaning down and wrapping his arms around Zoro's neck in a half hug.

"Quit mothering me." Zoro whines, trying to squirm out of Usopp's grip.

"Nope, someone needs to until you start taking care of yourself." Usopp teases.

"FINE! I'll sleep tonight at some point." The guitarist yelps as Usopp needles him in the side with his long pianist fingers.

"You better." Usopp laughs, messing up Zoro's already unruly hair.

Sanji smiles at Zoro's obvious happiness and slides out of the room to leave the two of them to it, Zoro always seems a little more balanced when Usopp is around. Usopp seems to genuinely care for his best friend, he was the only one who seemed to react appropriately when Zoro showed up with a black eye. From what Usopp has told him it sounds like they look after each other a lot. They're family really, it's sweet.

With no particular thought in mind, especially not the lyrics of Zoro's song or how Sanji can relax a little now because _someone_ is making sure that Zoro is looked after, he slides into bed and falls easily asleep.

The next day Sanji decides to give his voice a bit of a break and instead head back into town. He's got a temptation to check on Zeff, just to make sure that his old man is doing okay. He doesn't want him to know that he's doing it though so he'll wait until Zeff goes out. The old man does have some medical conditions that he's notoriously lackadaisical about keeping an eye on. His diabetes for one, usually the medication is fine to handle it but what should have been a recoverable injury to his leg when Sanji was a kid turned nasty and now Zeff's leg is all plastic and metal. Zeff's too busy running his dream business to worry about important things like his health.

He parks around the back of Zoro's work, and drops inside to annoy his band mate. Zoro looks dead on his feet, unsurprising since the rest of them came down to find Zoro asleep in his bean bag in the studio. The recordings had said that Zoro only went to sleep at about five in the morning after solidly playing his guitar and singing before that. Usopp of course was less than pleased.

Still, Zoro is too tired to annoy much without making Sanji feel a little guilty about it so he leaves the other man alone with a promise to drive him home after work. Zeff's car is still at the Baratie so Sanji decides to hit up the café across the road and wait for his old man to leave, then he can go in, check the old geezer is feeding himself properly and take stock of his meds to make sure he's doing that right too. In and out and no one has to have any unwanted father/son bonding feelings. Perfect. His favourite café is just across the way from the Baratie's car park and affords him a great view of Zeff's vehicle.

Sanji heads into the café, he used to come here sometimes if he felt like getting away from Zeff during the day. It's a nice place, a sort of artsy café full of interesting people in the middle of the day, as he'd so frequently worked evenings at the bar before he'd be in when the café was full of different types of people. Students from Chopper's university having quiet study sessions, mothers out with small children and freelance writers sitting with huge coffees and laptops on their tables. It's always quiet and pleasant with soft background music, good food and good coffee. Though, seeing as how Zoro works for a little independent coffee company it might be fun to go and see what their coffee is like, with the added bonus of pissing Zoro off at work.

That thought alone makes him grin as he approaches the counter. He orders one of their lovely cold seafood salads as it's one of his preferred choices from this place, a large latte and one of their nice homemade pastries too. Taking his order he settles down at an empty table and pours over the set list for this Friday.

As he so snottily said to Zoro earlier, he's got no reason to be nervous about the show. He's performed with bands for the first time on stage with a set list and songs he'd only heard the day before, this is far more notice than he'd usually get and he's far more familiar with their own songs. Really, he should be more chilled about this gig than any other.

Only… only he's not. He knows it's stupid because he always took his work at the Baratie seriously and he'd kick the face in of any guy who said that he didn't. But for some reason being the official singer for an actual band just feels somehow more real, more important perhaps. He doesn't want to let his friends down and perhaps more than that he wants to prove to Zoro that he can do his job. At first it was very much out of spite, as a way to show the other man how wrong he'd been. But now… now Sanji isn't quite sure what it is that's motivating this need to impress inside him. He doesn't really want to think about it. His thoughts about the other man have been increasingly jumbled since Zoro showed up with that black eye and anxious mental state.

"Do you mind if I sit here?" A female voice asks him.

Sanji jolts out of his thoughts and looks up at the pretty girl hovering by his table with a mug of coffee and a jam tart.

"Oh, no, of course not. Please, let me just move this…" Sanji invites her, shuffling his plates and mug around on the small table to make room for her.

She flashes him a nervous smile and sits. She's quite pretty really. Her long chestnut brown locks are tied up in a messy bun with pencils sticking from it, all the same a few long curled strands are hanging down about her face. Her skin is porcelain pale and flawless and as she sips at her coffee her large thick black rimmed glasses fog up with the steam. She's got a large lavender post-boy hat and floaty bohemian type clothes that makes Sanji guess art student.

Sanji doesn't want to get caught staring so he looks back down at the set list, chewing on his salad thoughtfully as he does so.

"What are you working on?" She asks suddenly, startling him into looking up again.

"Oh, sorry! That was really forward of me!" She apologises quickly with wide eyes behind her thick-rimmed glasses.

"No, it's fine. It's… work I suppose." Sanji answers with the strange sensation that yes, this is his job now.

"You suppose?" the brunette girls asks with a curious tilt of her head, a curl of her long hair falling loose from under her hat.

"I just started doing the thing I love as a job instead of just dreaming about it. It's taking a while to get used to I guess!" he laughs, feeling a little embarrassed at saying that out loud.

"Oh that's amazing, they do say if you do something you love then you'll never have to work a day in your life! What is it you do?" she says with a smile.

"I'm in a band." Sanji answers happily.

"Oh, a musician huh? Nice. What do you do?" the girl asks with a curious smile, leaning forward and resting her chin on her palm as she watches him through her eyelashes.

"I'm just a singer, I can't play any instruments unfortunately." Sanji shrugs and sips his coffee.

"Aw, you shouldn't be so down on yourself. Singing is hard." She giggles cutely.

"Well, you're very kind. I'm Sanji by the way." He says, realising that he's not even introduced himself yet. He holds out his hand and the girl shakes it with a smile.

"Amélie." She smiles back, her girl-next-door charm simply overwhelming Sanji in a flutter of hearts.

"So what's your singing work then? Are you writing songs?" She chirps curiously, sipping her coffee and craning her neck to see his papers.

"Ah no, I can't write either. My guitarist is the songwriter, he's really good, though lately he keeps turning everything I say into song lyrics!" Sanji laughs.

"Just like that?" Amélie says wide eyed, snapping her fingers to illustrate.

"Yeah. I've barely been with them any time and he's already halfway through his second song made from something I said to him. I'm not sure whether to be flattered or annoyed, a little of both I think." He admits, his mind flicking to Zoro and his stupidly aggressive behaviour but his amusingly gentle side as well. He certainly was a mixed up kind of man.

"Do you like this guy? I mean if he's writing songs about you…" Amélie trails off, looking at him suspiciously. Sanji jolts, he really hopes that she's not getting the wrong idea here! Even if Zoro wasn't still in love with his ex he's never even thought about Zoro like that.

Not that… well… not that he hasn't had the occasional passing crush on a guy before. But he's ever really acted on it or anything. Well… except a few drunken (and not quite so drunken) encounters. But those don't count! He's a ladies man damnit. Anyway… Zoro isn't even anything like the guy that Sanji had maybe sort of slept with a few times, though he supposes that Zoro is alright if you like that whole "good looking brooding talented guitarist" kind of thing.

Shit. Now he's thinking about it. Goddamnit!

"Aaah, it's not… we fight all the time. We argue about everything, he's a stubborn ass but… well, he's good at what he does." Sanji explains nervously.

"Tell me something about you now Amélie, are you from around here?" He asks quickly changing the subject with what he hopes is a smooth smile.

"I am actually, though my mother was from France, hence the name." she explains with a cute smile and then nibbles on her jam tart in possibly the cutest way that any human has ever consumed a jam tart. Aaah, it's possible that he's in love already.

"I tend to travel a lot though, so I don't spend a lot of time here. It makes it hard to keep in touch with people, it's a little lonely really." She admits with a sad sigh.

"Oh, I can't imagine anyone wanting to lose touch with you. And what is they say about absence making the heart grow fonder?" He flutters wistfully, the idea of two lovers separated by distance but not in heart. So romantic!

"You're sweet, but it doesn't work out like that really." Amélie laughs daintily behind her hand.

"Well, if anyone was foolish enough to let a lovely person like you drift away from them then you deserved better in the first place!" Sanji asserts confidently. He can't believe anyone would want to lose touch with such a sweet innocent flower like her.

"I try to tell myself that, but after a while you start to think there's something wrong with you, you know?" She sighs sweetly, dusting her hands off after finishing her jam tart.

"Hey, don't think that. You seem perfectly lovely and sweet to me." He smiles warmly, no lady should be allowed to feel so lowly of herself, especially one as great as her.

"You're cute. Here, let's see if you mean it." She giggles and scrawls something on her napkin before draining the last of her coffee and disappearing out of the door. Sanji blinks in surprise, she moves fast! He waves to her out of the window and picks the napkin up. Amélie is scrawled across the top with a phone number underneath it. HEY! AMAZING! He's managed to get the phone number of a pretty girl and his dream job all in the same month!

He pulls out his phone and saves the number and proceeds to immediately text her.

_'I told you absence makes the heart grow fonder! –Sanji'_

Only a minute or so later he gets one back.

_'You're a cutie! Maybe I'll see if I can see you sometime before I hit the road again… -Amélie'_

Sanji finishes up his salad, unable to wipe the huge grin off of his face. When Zeff's car drives by shortly after he downs his coffee and dashes out of the door with his pastry in between his teeth. He slides inside their house and inspects Zeff's meds, it seems that he's been taking them as he's supposed to which is good. Though it does look rather like he's reverted to junk food lately which is obviously less good. He sneaks out to the nearby corner shop and fills Zeff's fridge with healthy vegetables, fresh meat and tasty sauces.

He manages to do all of this and slip back out before Zeff returns home. After that he only spends an hour or so mooching around the city before picking Zoro up and returning home.

They have another practice again that evening, which also goes smoothly with only one run through needed. It gives him plenty of time to text back and forth with Amélie. She's wonderful to talk to, so sweet and funny. They talk about how his practice is going and, apparently because he's not already nervous enough about his first gig with the band, invites her to the show. He tells her where and when it will be, knowing that there's still tickets available on the website as Nami's been informing them how they're selling at every possible opportunity.

_'How's the songwriting going with that guitarist then? You BFFs now?'_ Amélie texts him teasingly.

_'Nooo! He's okay, having trouble with the newest 1 for some reason. I think it's the first show they've done in a while, mayb he's nervous.'_ Sanji texts back his current theory.

_'Understandable. And how do you feel about the show? I'm looking forward to hearing you sing!'_ she sends him back.

_'With you there I'm sure I'll be perfectly fine! I wouldn't want you to hear anything less from me!'_ he smiles as he sends the message. Perhaps she'll want to see him after the show and maybe they could go on a little date or something, that'd be nice.

_'I wanna hear the best you've got.'_ She replies.

The day of the gig arrives and the whole band are up at 6 for a breakfast meeting, Robin, Nami and Franky all have work at nine, Chopper has a lunchtime class and Usopp has the day off but has lots of wedding planning to do. 6am is the only time that they're all free.

"Right, here are copies of the set list for everyone. Zoro are your guitars tuned and packed?" Nami questions.

"Uh-huh, I'm leaving Wado here as I don't need her for this show and it's less to unpack there. You'll test them for me when you get there right Franky?" Zoro nods.

"Yeah, of course. And don't worry I'll be super careful with them." Franky smiles reassuringly.

"Okay." Zoro agrees reluctantly, Sanji can tell that the guitarist doesn't like other people handling his instruments.

"Zoro, make sure you put something over that black eye to make it a little less noticeable." Nami orders, pointing at Zoro.

"Like what, an eyepatch?" Zoro huffs, rolling his eye. The bruise is now a faded purple and yellow colour with the damaged area starting to recede. It looks much better than the earlier black and blue but it's perhaps at its most vividly noticeable stage.

"No, like makeup." Nami grouses and kicks Zoro under the table.

"Alright!" the moss head mutters, rubbing at his leg.

"Perfect. Now, Sanji, you're going to have a change of clothes for Zoro in your car so he's not performing in anything dirty. We've made this mistake before and Zoro ended up on stage covered in coffee stains, not again! Hopefully he won't need it but if we don't bring them then I guarantee that he will! Now, you know the route there from Zoro's work, yes?" she asks him.

"Of course, and I'll drive as quickly as possible, I promise." He agrees.

"And you," Nami adds, turning to Zoro with a scowl, "finish work on time or else I swear I will hunt you to the ends of the earth and pull out your spleen with my bare hands."

"Could you be less of a psycho, please?" Zoro grumbles, leaning away from their rather frightening (but still gloriously beautiful) manager. Luffy just laughs hysterically as if the whole thing is the funniest thing that he's ever seen, Robin simply smiles serenely over her coffee mug and Sanji thinks once again that these people are the strangest bunch he's ever met.

"Alright, okay, work then." Nami sighs, standing up from the table and straightening out her work shirt. Whilst she's at home most days in her capacity as a band manager she does have some kind of bespoke financial business on the side that she's never properly explained to Sanji and in truth when she tried all the financial terms just flew over his head. It seems to pay remarkably well though, but he'd expect no less from Nami.

"I'm picking up the rings today Zoro, I'll put them in you room when I get back okay? Don't lose them!" Usopp pleads in a panicky whine.

"I won't, now go!" Zoro grumbles, batting at his best friend until he leaves with a laugh.

The rest of the group clears to go their separate ways, some to work, Chopper to his class and Luffy back out to… wherever it is Luffy goes. The back of Usopp's big tour van, which he's been informed is named Merry for some unknown reason. Though perhaps it was named after their old band with Baby in it, Going Merry.

"Oi, grass hair, come help me wash." Sanji orders, collecting up plates.

"I don't have grass hair." Zoro grouses, shoving him in the arm and dumping an armful of mugs in the sink.

"Seen a mirror lately without it cracking? You're green." Sanji teases.

"Doesn't mean it's grass! Anyway, at least I don't have my face half covered so I stand a chance of at least seeing a mirror." The other man retorts.

"Hey, I'd rather have one eye covered up than wander around with a massive black eye on show." He grins.

"Whatever. Do you want my help or not?" Zoro huffs, looking at Sanji with his hands on his hips.

"Yeah, yeah. You dry I'll wash." Sanji agrees and sets about with the task in relative silence, passing wet dishes to Zoro to dry. They work their way through half of them in what Sanji thinks is a comfortable silence but Zoro's got this thoughtful scowl on his face like he's been having lately. Ever since he wrote that new song that's not come out right he's been like this, he'll occasionally disappear to tinker with it more but apparently no matter what he does it's not playing ball. It must be really frustrating.

"I kind of wish we could play both new songs, you know? I'd like to be able to release both now." Zoro says suddenly into the silent room.

"But you're not even happy with it, and Nami's decided on the set list." He reasons, trying to defend Nami's decision.

"That's crap, I've got the guitar, you've got it embedded into your brain until the day you die and Luffy can drum along to anything. Franky's pretty good with adlibbing bass if he loses his place and Usopp's fine with improvisation if he has to. Sometimes performing it in front of people is just what you need to fix something like that." Zoro argues with a pout.

"If you say so, seems a little mean to make the audience your guinea pigs for that though." Sanji shrugs. Zoro grumbles unhappily in response and Sanji decides to leave that argument be.

"Oh, I'll give you a lift to work, that way you don't have to throw your bike in the back when I pick you up and we waste less time." Sanji offers.

"Yeah. Well, I start at 11, so I'll see you down here at 10:15?" Zoro says, stacking the last plate on the draining board, that one can air dry he supposes.

"Sure." Sanji agrees and Zoro nods and disappears out of the room.

Sanji starts putting the dishes away, mentally running through the set list for the thousandth time and he's not nervous goddamnit! In his pocket his phone pings and Sanji pulls it out as he replaces the last mug in the cupboard.

_'Really looking forward to your show tonight.'_ It's from Amélie!

_'I'll see you there!'_ Sanji texts back giddily. Maybe after she hears him sing she'll agree to be his girlfriend!

_'Count on it' _comes the reply.

After he's dropped Zoro off at work he goes home and spends forever deciding on what to wear tonight, having narrowed it down to two choices he sets them aside and then slides his headphones on and listens to a playlist of tonight's songs, including a version of their new song "When You're Around" that Chopper has cleaned up and made into an actual recording. Sanji has to admit in an entirely narcissistic way that hearing his own voice sound so good in a song is amazing and seeing it on his iPhone with all of the proper track and album titles on it makes it somehow more real. It feels like he's a real musician now, not just some guy who sings sometimes at his job.

He showers and scrubs his hair, he shaves with incredible precision, leaving his perfectly manly goatee alone though. He makes lunch nervously for those left in the house and cleans nervously. He makes dinner early for everyone so that it's ready when those with sensibly timed jobs unlike Zoro's get to eat as soon as they get through the door.

He changes into the first outfit and looks at himself in the mirror, tight black jeans and his blue pinstripe shirt. He panics and decides that he doesn't like it after he's put his shoes on so he has to take everything off and start again. He changes into the second outfit of a pink casual tee shirt and beige khakis, he puts his orange sneakers on and brushes his hair until it's shiny smooth. With a frustrated growl he changes his mind again and goes back to the first outfit and has to brush his hair all over again as it got slightly mussed in the changing.

He helps the others check that everything they need is in the van aside from Zoro's spare clothing in the back of his car. He's supposed to wait a while before going off to collect Zoro but he's too paranoid of anything going wrong to do so. He heads away from their sleepy town of Syrup and into the city, it's an easy trip and he parks outside of the back of Zoro's coffee place and heads inside. Before he can get to the door though his phone pings with a message.

_'Hey, is your show still on?'_ It's Amélie, she must be worried that she won't get to see him! How cute!

_'Of course! I'll see you there, I've got to go and get my guitarist!' _he replies quickly.

The coffee shop is called Dojo and Sanji is pleased to see that it's already closed, though the lights are on. He bangs on the shut door.

"We're fucking CLOSED can't you- oh, hold up!" Zoro's tirade halts when he spots Sanji at the door. Zoro jogs over and opens it quickly to let him in and shuts and locks it behind him.

"You're early." Zoro adds over his shoulder.

"You're drenched." Sanji notes, taking a step away from Zoro. It's true, he's completely covered in coffee from head to toe, he's even dripping on the floor.

"Really? I hadn't fucking noticed!" Zoro bitches irritably, returning to the counter with squishy steps. There's whipped cream in his hair, it's really jarringly funny.

"What the hell happened? You're lucky I've got clean clothes." Sanji notes, silently praising Nami's brilliance.

"Let's just say someone thought the last drink I made would be better on me than in them." Zoro grumbles, swiping at his skin with a dry cloth by the coffee machine. Zoro's cheeks are a little pink and Sanji can't help but wonder how hot that drink was when Zoro got it chucked over him.

"Are you okay?" he asks worriedly.

"Yeah, I'm fine. But at this rate we're not going to get out of here in time so you could help." Zoro grouses.

"Tell me what to do and see if you can wash your hair in the sink or something, you've got a lump of cream like… right here." Sanji says gesturing to his own hair. Zoro reaches up and pulls it free with an angry sneer.

"AGH. Flip the chairs and put them on the tables so I can mop I've got a load of coffee to clear up back here." The guitarist sighs, flicking the glob of cream into the sink.

"Throw me something to clean 'em with." Sanji orders. Zoro throws a squirt bottle of cleaner and a rag at Sanji and he gets to work. This is something that he had to do routinely in the Baratie so he knows what he's doing. He feels his phone ping in his pocket but waits until all the tables are done before checking it, it's from Amélie again.

_'YOUR guitarist? A little possessive hm?'_ Amélie teases him. Sanji would usually reply but he's too busy right now. He shoves his phone back in his pocket and ducks behind the counter, Zoro is rinsing off his hair in the sink and Sanji finds a clean towel for him. He leans over and rubs it in Zoro's clean hair and leaves him to it, grunting a 'you're welcome' to Zoro's muffled thanks from under the towel.

He grabs a mop and bucket and makes quick work of the floor. He gets behind the counter where Zoro is cashing up with a towel on his head, he hops up onto the counter so that Sanji can mop up the considerable coffee mess on the floor.

Zoro takes the money to the safe and locks that up and powers down the coffee maker, switching off all of the mysterious things on it and emptying parts and rinsing others whilst Sanji pours the dirty water from the mop bucket down the sink.

Despite the time pressure he's feeling pretty relaxed, nothing like the nervous energy that he was running on earlier. Again he's struck with the feeling that when he and Zoro shut up and work together they actually make a pretty goddamn good team.

Zoro is just switching off all of the lights when the clock ticks to the end of his shift, no way would he have made it if Sanji hadn't gotten here early and helped out.

"Thanks Sanji." Zoro mumbles as he locks the building up and jogs with Sanji to his car.

"It's no problem. Get in the back and change, I'm gonna have to speed a bit so try not to crack your head on a window or anything.

"Got it. I brought these so I wouldn't ruin your seats." Zoro adds, holding up two garbage bags, one for his damp coffee clothes and another for him to sit on he's also brought the towel that he'd used on his hair. Smart, thoughtful too.

Zoro hops in the back behind him and pulls off his shoes and socks first, chucking them into the first bag. Sanji looks over his shoulder as he reverses, just as Zoro peels off his damp shirt.

Zoro is… surprisingly muscular. His coffee coated six pack makes Sanji's mind flatline for a second or two and he nearly reverses into the dumpster in the car park, not that Zoro notices. That's not the main thing occupying his attention right now. There's a huge scar running diagonal along Zoro's chest from shoulder to hip, the kind of nasty looking scar that doesn't look like someone alive should be able to have.

"Fucking HELL! How did you get that?!" He yelps, eyeing it. Zoro's fingers come to the scar, running along it like it contains some secret important memory.

"I was protecting someone from a psycho with a knife, are you driving or what?" Zoro says, changing the subject.

"Right, right." Sanji nods and faces forward and pulls out of the car park.

His mind flicks to what Usopp told him about Baby and her father, how he was an abusive fuck and how Zoro stepped between them. He… he has a feeling that the psycho in question must have been him. How many people does Zoro protect like that after all? Shit. That's a lot of dedication to someone to get nearly cut in half to protect them. Zoro did all that and Baby still left him?

Sanji's eyes flick to his rear view mirror in time to see Zoro run the towel over his shirtless torso, getting the last of the coffee off of him. The flex and ripple of Zoro's abs make Sanji's face heat. Damn Amélie and her teasing about his feelings towards Zoro, it was strictly platonic, work related and antagonistic. Not… not something… else. He chews his lip and lets his eyes flick back into the mirror. Oh fuck, this should be straight up porn. Zoro's got this hard V of muscle that just dives into his slick wet jeans in a way that porn and underwear adverts never ever manage to pull off this well. Zoro pops the button on his jeans and slides them down, Sanji's eyes bug out and he very nearly drives them into oncoming traffic.

Sanji now knows two things, Zoro for some reason has green hair down there too and also that Zoro doesn't wear underwear. Holy FUCK.

"Eyes on the road pervert." Zoro says, leaning right over into Sanji's ear, his voice all deep and… oh_god_ why is this HAPPENING?!

"You're the one getting NAKED in the back of my car! Where's your goddamn UNDERWEAR?!" Sanji yelps, grabbing Zoro's clean clothes from the front passenger seat and hurling them in the back with Zoro. He returns his hands to the wheel, his grip white knuckled.

"Don't wear 'em." Zoro answers casually. His legs kicking up in the rear view mirror as he shimmies into dark green jeans, his hips arc as he puts his feet back down and does up the button on the jeans. This should be _illegal_, hell it might be! Zoro slides into a cool white shirt and climbs into the front of the car, casually as anything he zips himself into his boots and buckles himself in, entirely ignoring the aneurism and quiet sexual crisis happening in the privacy of Sanji's skull.

"Oh, hey. We're nearly here, right on time too." Zoro notes as Sanji cuts across several lanes of traffic, ignoring blaring horns and screeches into Loguetown's parking area at the back.

Both of them spring from the car in a scramble, Robin is already waiting at the back door for them, holding it open with a smile.

"Cutting it fine boys." Robin notes and shuts the door after them. Zoro slides his guitar strap over his shoulder and runs through a few scales, his head tilted as if to better hear the sound and check that it's in tune. He peeks around the door into the bar and sees that it's packed, his stomach churns anxiously and he can feel his throat tensing up. Zoro's hand lands on his shoulder and pulls him back from the door.

"I know you're not going to give me the satisfaction of being right about you, are you? I said you couldn't do this, but I know you, you're a spiteful bastard and you're gonna do anything to prove me wrong, huh?" Zoro says softly into his ear, a voice gentle in a way that belies the challenging and mean words.

"Of course I'm not gonna let you be fucking right, you'd be insufferable." Sanji manages, trying to suppress the tremble that runs through himself. What if he screws this up? What if the others realise that they made a mistake here? What- what if the reason Zoro can't finish that song is because he doesn't belong here?

"Anyway Nami's still being a fascist about the microphones, see? So you're not even gonna be looking at the crowd anyway. I'll be stuck staring at your stupid face the whole set, it's gonna suck." Zoro adds, leaning past Sanji to point. He's right… he can just pretend that the crowd isn't even there!

"I'll try to contain my gag reflex." Sanji snipes back a little weakly.

"Same." Zoro agrees.

"Come on, get your butts out there!" Nami orders, giving them both a firm push in the back and herding the rest of the band out behind them.

The room explodes into applause and in the sudden brightness of the stage lights Sanji can't quite see the crowd. That's… that's good for now. He settles himself up on stage and tries to imagine that the lights are a little bluer, that this is the Baratie, that it's his stage. The illusion works a little and his shoulders relax some.

"So, hey." Zoro says, leaning into the microphone, the crowd cheers and Zoro grins completely at ease.

"You may have heard that we've got ourselves a singer… obviously." He adds, flicking his eyes to Sanji.

"His name is Sanji and I fucking hate him, we're actually going to start off with a new song that I wrote about how much we can't stand each other." Zoro adds with a smirk.

All of Sanji's previous good will and fuzzy feelings towards Zoro burn up like they're entering the sun. That fucking bastard just convinced him up here so he could try to humiliate him in public! Oh man, he's gonna kick his fucking FACE IN!

Sanji's world narrows down to the object of his hatred and he steps up to the mic as Zoro's guitar into brings. Sanji forces all of his loathing into his words and begins to sing their song. Cursing Zoro for never listening to him, cursing him for every fucking nasty thing he's ever said, about how he can't stand to be around him!

He's about three quarters of the way through the song before the thought occurs that maybe Zoro did this deliberately, that he pissed him off just to draw that emotion out and to ensure a good performance. The smug grin on Zoro's face confirms just that. Okay, so Zoro's not a jerk, he's an insufferable bastard and Sanji still can't stand to be around him. But he feels a little less vindictive now, but he's getting into the energy of the song and as they sing together their harmony is even more pitch perfect than it's ever been in a recording.

Zoro's last chord dies and hangs in the air and the crowd _screams_ for them. Sanji's heart is going a million miles an hour and he can't stop grinning, they did it! And they did it with a song that means no one will be comparing his singing to Zoro's, which… was just as Zoro planned. Wow.

He looks up at his guitarist to grin at him only to see that Zoro has gone pale, his hands loose on his guitar as he stares out to a fixed point in the audience. Sanji follows his gaze and sees… he has to squint from the light but he thinks that it's Amélie, she's got her hair down and she's dressed totally differently but he thinks it's her.

Her long dark curls hang heavily around her face, her bangs unobscured by her hat this time. It's funny, with her big glasses off she almost looks… like… Baby.

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck FUCK!

It is her! Amélie is Baby and Baby is Amélie! He knows that he's only ever seen pictures of her or videos but she was dressed so different and with those glasses he hadn't managed to place her. Hell! He'd been texting her about Zoro, she'd been asking about him and how is he so _stupid?!_

His eyes flick to Zoro and the other man looks hollow and weak, worse than he did after he showed up at first with that black eye. Seeing her again must be a real punch in the gut, or… well, or a slap in the face even. And for her to be here deliberately at Sanji's debut as their official new singer. Well, there's no doubting the malicious message there. He looks back at her, her smile is predatory now and Sanji can't see any hint of the sweet girl that he met in the café, the one who was chirpy and dainty with her jam tart and her coffee. Now Sanji can just see Zoro's ex who seems to be going to all lengths to rip his heart out again.

Zoro is frozen and the crowd are starting to notice, Zoro's got that look that Sanji's oh so good at identifying in musicians. He's not going to be able to play, he's choking. He's seen it in singers before, how they take one look at the crowd and their voice just dies, how guitarists suddenly become all thumbs and freeze up. But now there's no one to step in and Sanji will _not_ let Zoro give in to this, he won't be part of something that hurts Zoro like this all because he was too dumb to identify someone from a picture to them in real life.

He takes a step back from the mic and hisses a direction to the rest of the band.

"Everything Is Alright, just play it!" He orders, his voice no nonsense.

Luffy leaps at the drumkit, bashing out the rhythm. This is a crazy last ditch attempt to save Zoro and drag him back into the music, a way to make the crowd think that Zoro is just playing with this damaged act, that it's all part of a performance. He leaps back to the microphone and slams his hand into Zoro's shoulder and sings/shouts the first few lines as Franky's bass joins in, silently begging Zoro to snap out of it.

_"Tell me that you're alright,_

_Yeah everything is alright."_

Zoro is still looking right at her so Sanji reaches over and grabs Zoro's chin in his hand, pulling Zoro to look at him. He forces every ounce of desperation for Zoro to be okay into his voice and it's the most real and emotional that it's sounded than in any practice. Zoro's eyes start to focus on him.

_"Oh please tell me that you're alright,_

_Yeah everything is alright."_

Zoro's eyes are sharp and bright and suddenly he explodes into motion, the chords playing all high energy and desperate, faster than they'd been played in practice and full of some kind of musical begging. He doesn't know how he knows but this is the musical equivalent of Zoro telling him that he's not okay, Zoro needs him to keep this up or he'll fall apart.

Sanji sings again, trying to reassure Zoro with his tone and his words that it'll be okay, that he's not going anywhere.

_"Give me a reason to end this discussion,_

_To break with tradition._

_To fold and divide."_

His voice goes a little soft as he starts the next part.

_"Cause I hate the ocean, theme parks and airplanes,_

_Talking with strangers, waiting in line._

_I'm through with these pills that make me sit still._

_Are you feeling fine?"_

Suddenly Zoro breaks in with the next line, an answer to the question in the song.

_"Yes, I feel just fine."_

Sanji grins, it's perfect. It's a real dialog, but he doesn't believe that Zoro's fine at all. He continues, repeating the chorus and beginning the verse after it with a smile.

_"Tell me that you're alright,_

_Yeah everything is alright._

_Oh please tell me that you're alright,_

_Yeah everything is alright."_

_I'm sick of the things I do when I'm nervous_

_Like cleaning the oven or checking my tires_

_Or counting the number of tiles in the ceiling"_

Zoro laughs and chips the last line in, the memory of his ill advised cleaning on the day of his black eye flashing over his face as Sanji remembers it too.

_"Head for the hills, the kitchen's on fire!"_

_"I used to rely on self-medication,_

_I guess I still do that from time to time._

_But I'm getting better at fighting the future,_

_Someday you'll be fine."_

"Yes, I'll be just fine." Zoro answers and this time he too joins in with the chorus, their voices powerful and perfect together. He fills in the higher spectrum that Zoro can't reach whilst Zoro's rich beautiful bass add colour and tone to their words.

_"Tell me that you're alright,_

_Yeah everything is alright._

_Oh please tell me that you're alright,_

_Yeah everything is alright."_

The guitar notes flow out beautifully and Sanji takes a second to let the power of Zoro's skill rush over him, his eyes fluttering shut for one blissful moment. This is perfect, it has all the realness and magic that the song never had in the studio. He would sell his soul to keep this feeling forever.

He opens his eyes and Zoro is staring right at him, his dark eyes pinning Sanji to the floor and ripping the words right out of his soul. He starts to sing again but Zoro does too, only Zoro is making up words, new words which are sung under and after Sanji's own lyrics. The effect is that of… not quite a conversation, but perhaps the thoughts that Zoro has or is having right now, when the last line hits they both sing together again, sending a powerful jolt through Sanji's system.

_"Give me a reason (I don't believe a word)_

_To end this discussion (of anything I've heard)_

_To break with tradition (they tell me that it's not so hard)_

_To fold and divide (it's not so hard)_

_So let's not get carried (away with everything)_

_Away with the process (from here to in-between)_

_of elimination (the long goodbye)_

_I don't want to waste your time._

_Tell me that you're alright,_

_Yeah everything is alright._

_Oh please tell me that you're alright,_

_Yeah everything is alright."_

"Alright" Zoro adds with a grin and pulls the guitar tempo up for the end of the song, another unscripted change that just _works_ and makes Sanji's blood fizz. Sanji sings again and Zoro starts his counter singing again. It really should make the song worse, that overlapping, but it makes it a million times better. The room is filled with their strange chemistry and he's sure that everyone else must be able to feel it, surely.

_"Tell me that you're alright, (Hi, everything's great)_

_Yeah everything is alright. (Everything's fine)_

_Oh please tell me that you're alright, (Hi, everything's great)_

_Yeah everything is alright."_

Zoro finishes the song with more unscripted lyrics and Sanji's glad because with the way Zoro's looking at him right now he's not sure he could make another note. Zoro's dark eyes are filled with nine million things right now, trust and gratitude, understanding and trust it's all just so… overwhelming.

_"Everything's fine, everything's fine, everything's fine, everything's fine."_ He trails off lowly and the last notes of his guitar hang in the air, humming in Sanji's lungs and ruining his brain forever because nothing else will ever be so powerful or important in Sanji's entire life.

He's jolted out of this when the crowd screeches and hollers, clapping like it's the best thing they've seen, stamping their feet and literally screaming at them. Sanji laughs, bright and high on Zoro's energy. He looks out into the crowd and sees that Amélie/Baby looks torn between utter shock and total horror. Sanji grins at her, he won't let her exercise that amount of power over his guitarist ever again. He doesn't stop to examine that potentially troubling thought as the rest of the band launch into the rest of the set list as if they hadn't just thrown in that impromptu song. The cues drilled into them kick in and Sanji starts to sing the next song, pouring his focus into that, though he does notice when Baby storms out of the venue, even if Zoro doesn't.

The gig seems to last in some bubble of time that feels amazingly real when it's happening but somehow it's suddenly over. The crowd loves them and he and Zoro spend the entire set perfectly in synch and in harmony, it's easily the best run through they've ever had.

Afterwards Sanji stumbles down the stairs with adrenaline drunk legs, Zoro catching the back of his shirt on the last step as he trips, all uncoordinated and dizzy from the rush. The crowd going mad behind them is still sending shivers up Sanji's spine and he's a complete mess, leaning against Zoro and laughing at nothing and everything.

"Wow." Nami says simply, looking at them all, but particularly him and Zoro as they come into the back room. Sanji can't tell from her tone if she's impressed, angry or pleased but he thinks that it might be all three at once.

"That was both the best and worst thing ever, nice save though." Nami nods at them, her arms folded over her chest.

"I should have guessed that _she_ would show up though. Next time I'm going to wait at the back of the room and if she shows up again I'll destroy her." Robin says in a macabre tone, her eyes deadly serious.

Sanji doesn't have the will to argue, he's not sure that someone shouldn't stand up to Baby or Amélie, whatever she wanted to go by.

"How did she find out about the show though?" Brook sighs, rubbing his forehead.

A flash of guilt surges through him at that, was it his fault that she showed up at all? Had she deliberately met him, all dressed up so it was likely he wouldn't place her? He was the one who had told her about the gig though, he could tell himself that it was on the internet and she could have found it on her own but… who knows?

"Can we just pack up and go?" Zoro sighs, pushing away from the wall and away from where Sanji is paralyzed by guilt.

The band all start packing, hauling their shit from the back to the van over and over again. By the time they go up on stage to pack Luffy's drum kit in the back as the last thing the crowd is all gone, the room seems strangely empty and Sanji finds it hard to believe that magic happened just so recently right here when now it looks so normal. Even so, he can't shake the guilty thread winding its way through his insides. It's still there even when he and Zoro climb back into Sanji's slightly coffee scented car alone together.

"If… if I did something awful by accident but apologised could you forgive me?" Sanji asks, his gaze flicking nervously to Zoro.

"That's kind of an impossible question to answer without more information, but sure, what is it?" Zoro sighs scrubbing at his face tiredly. Sanji leans over and opens the glove compartment by Zoro's knees and pulls his phone out, he opens his messages and hands the phone to Zoro.

"I didn't realise who she was, she looked so different, it's only when I saw you looking at her tonight and start freaking out that I realised they were the same person. She told me her name was-" Sanji explains in a panic.

"Amélie." Zoro cuts in, his voice sombre. He scrolls through Sanji's messages back and forth to her as guilt washes hotly over Sanji's neck.

"She told you her name was Amélie." Zoro says, almost to himself.

"That's how she used to be, what she used to be called too until she started going by Baby and became…" Zoro trails off. He shakes his head and hands the phone back to Sanji. He leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees and clasps his hands behind the back of his neck like they tell you to in those booklets on planes when you're about to crash. Is that how Zoro feels?

"Let me guess. She was all sweet, gentle and funny, she made you feel like you were the only person in the room and that all you wanted to do was to make her laugh. She seemed really nice and she wanted to know all about you." Zoro says flatly.

"I'm so sorry." Sanji croaks out.

"Don't be, really." Zoro sighs, sitting up in his seat and flashing Sanji a weak reassuring smile.

"You're not the only one to be taken in. She can flick from being like that… from being Amélie to being Baby like that." Zoro says, snapping his fingers.

"You won't be the last man to fall for it and you certainly weren't the first. She would have been there tonight even if she hadn't tracked you down. She wasn't going to miss the chance to see just who had taken her spot. She'd be pissed if you sucked because then we've replaced her with someone worse than her and she'd be furious if you were better because then she'll be jealous, it's a catch 22." Zoro groans, combing a hand through his slightly coffee stiff hair.

"And what will she be?" Sanji asks nervously, anxious to know if his assessment of their incredible harmony is one sided or not.

Zoro's face breaks out into a grin, paired with his black eye he looks a little crazed actually.

"She'll be mind-bendingly livid." Zoro smirks toothily, making Sanji's skin tingle.

"Seriously, don't worry about her. You didn't do anything wrong, let's just go home and crash. I feel like I could sleep for a week." The guitarist reassures him, sliding back in his seat with a sinful stretch that reminds Sanji of earlier.

"Well considering that you've not slept in about that long I'm not surprised." Sanji says tightly, pulling out of Loguetown and onto the road.

"Yeah, well, I'm tired now. You will be too when the adrenaline crashes your system." Zoro says and yawns so hard that his jaw cracks. He snuggles down into the seat and totally starts to doze as Sanji drives them back. It's bad enough that when they pull up to the house he has to pull a half asleep, loose limbed Zoro out of his car and tug him to the house.

By then Sanji is tired enough himself that he too wants to sleep forever, so the two of them gracelessly ascend the stairs up to their shared floor, arms wrapped around each other, muttering quiet goodnights as they part ways in the hall.

"Hey Sanji," Zoro's sleep drunk voice calls him. Sanji pauses in shutting his door and looks up at the desperately tired guitarist, leaning against his own door frame and looking at Sanji sleepily.

"Thanks for tonight, for everything." Zoro says, whisper quiet and oh so sincere.

"Thanks for letting me." Sanji replies just as earnestly. He means it too, Zoro's taken him to places he's never even imagined, the way he felt with Zoro onstage makes him feel like he's been living his whole life on mute and only just turned the sound on. He's never felt more alive than he had tonight, and it's all because of Zoro.

"Night, curly brow." Zoro yawns and goes into his room.

"Night coffee-moss." Sanji agrees, doing the same, noticing Zoro flip him off in the corner of his vision.

Sanji clumsily strips and, too tired to bother with bedclothes, falls into his bed naked and spends the last of his energy pulling the duvet up to his chin before falling unconscious.

Hello all, the song for this one is Everything is Alright by Motion City Soundtrack and I HIGHLY recommend listening to it.


	6. Chapter 6

Sanji isn't really sure what to make of Zoro anymore. At first he thought that Zoro was just a big mean jerk and he kind of is but in a… nice… way? That doesn't even make sense. Zoro doesn't make any fucking sense. Zoro is the most aggressive foul mouthed motherfucker that Sanji has ever had the fortune to meet. Or misfortune. Whatever.

So, he's an abrasive jerk, but he's talented too. So stupidly talented, with the song writing and his guitar skills. So okay, Sanji can respect that. But equally there's this other side to Zoro, this fucked up damaged side where his ex managed to leave big ass claw marks in his psyche when she ripped out his heart. It's sort of endearing almost. Zoro's been through a lot of shit but he's still kind to his friends, in a mean abrasive aggressive kind of way. Apparently he's a complex guy.

Sanji still has a bit of a thing for puzzles and Zoro is a giant puzzle. He wants in on it, he wants to know how Zoro makes his songs and why some things are song material and why some things aren't, specifically why he keeps ripping off their arguments for songs.

He rolls over in bed and remembers last night, he remembers that electric feeling of him and Zoro singing together, of he and Zoro breathing life into a song that had previously been broken and not working. It was nothing short of magic.

He decides that there's only so much laying around in bed that he can do, even if he is a musician now and stupidly lazy hours to start the day were almost in the job description. He has some standards after all. He climbs out of his warm and oh so tempting bed and into the shower, he locks his door into the bathroom and Zoro's, he really doesn't need the guitarist barging in on his shower.

He turns the shower on and lets it warm up for a little while whilst he brushes his teeth, watching the mirror steam up as he does so. After that he slides into the shower, making sure that the shower curtain is pulled far enough over so that the spray doesn't get over the edge of the bath and soak the floor.

He suds up his hair with his personal organic coconut conditioner and rinses it carefully, then he wrings the water out of his hair and massages in the matching coconut butter conditioner, using his fingers to comb it through his locks. At least he takes care of his hair, unlike Zoro. Despite all of the bleaching and dying that Zoro must go through to get his hair that colour he doesn't exactly look after it, Zoro's got some gross own brand 2 in 1 hair stuff that probably cost him all of two bucks and it's all gunky around the rim of the bottle. Ick. He's only got one soap as well which also looks like some kind of cheap shit, not the pleasant essential oil tea tree and spearmint expensive stuff that Sanji has. Zoro is such a caveman.

He rinses his hair through for a while and when he's sure that it's squeaky clean and free of conditioner he turns the spray off and steps out from the shower. He wipes the mirror clear of steam and looks at himself, he supposes that he could shave, though he only did it last night but it doesn't look like it. He brings out his razor and examines the blade, it's dull as hell, no wonder it didn't do much. He must have been too anxious last night to have really noticed. He unclips the blade and, wrapping a towel around himself, ducks back into his own room and goes into his desk, he thinks that he threw the razor heads in there when he got bored of unpacking sensibly and just resorted to shoving handfuls of stuff out to sight.

He attaches the razor head and grabs the packet of remaining ones figuring that he should really find a real home for them whilst he's at it. He places the razor on the edge of the sink, he supposes that he could put the spare heads in the bathroom medicine cupboard, the one with the mirror on.

He opens it and is surprised to find it stuffed full to bursting, which is a real surprise considering Zoro's thus far entirely Spartan bathroom products. However, upon closer inspection it's not toiletries in here, not really. There are bottles of pills, varying different strengths of pain medication ranging from ibuprofen to straight up industrial strength codeine. There's rubbing alcohol and iodine, an array of bandages in new packets, butterfly stitches, sticking plasters and support bandages. There's a bottle of witch hazel cream and surprisingly several different kinds of makeup in a few odd colours as well as one that looks like Zoro's skin tone. What the hell does Zoro need all of this stuff for? Even the first aid kit at the Baratie wasn't this well stocked! It's so full to bursting that there isn't even any room for Sanji's razor heads. With a frown Sanji decides that maybe he'll keep them in his desk and shaves quickly in the mirror.

He unlocks both bathroom doors again and heads back into his room, wondering about Zoro mysteriously well stocked medicine cabinet. He supposes that Zoro does seem to get into fights and bike accidents a lot from what the others say, but still that's awfully well prepared.

His phone rings, pulling him from his thoughts. He quickly steps to his bed and picks it up, "Amélie" flashes up on the screen. At first he's tempted to not answer, to just stay away from that whole mess, but it's rude not to answer a lady. With some reluctance he picks up the phone, fully on his guard this time.

"Hello?" He greets cautiously.

"I didn't think that you'd actually pick up." Amélie or… Baby he supposes says flatly.

"I probably shouldn't be." Sanji admits, sitting down on his bed.

"If you were going to hang up on me I think you would have done it already, which means that you want to talk to me. So how about this, I'll answer your questions if you answer mine." She says confidently down the phone to him.

"I'll go first then, did you follow me to that café? Did you deliberately find me to trick me?" He asks unhappily, still feeling monumentally stupid for not recognising her. He's like those idiots in superman who suddenly are fooled by the addition of glasses and a business suit.

"No, I just happened to be in the area, I do live nearby you know. I told you that much already. But I did pick your table on purpose." She concedes rather honestly, or… it sounds honest anyway, Sanji has no way of telling.

"But why?" He asks with a frown.

"Ah-ah. My turn. How is Zoro?" She asks in his ear with a purr.

Sanji freezes, what would be a bad answer to give her here? He doesn't want to make her feel like she won by telling her how torn up Zoro was about the whole thing, but equally he doesn't want to sound like he's over-exaggerating how okay Zoro is, that will just make it sound like he's definitely not fine.

"He's fine. We all thought the show went really well, amazingly well actually. Maybe he just wasn't expecting to see you there." Sanji answers cagily.

"Oh no, he was expecting me." She chuckles and Sanji finds himself scowling, was this why Zoro was so opposed to having a show at all?

"What do you mean?" He frowns, he'd intended on asking her if she'd deliberately deceived him or if she'd just realised that he hadn't recognised her and rolled with it. Instead that came out.

"I talked to him of course." She answers as if it's obvious.

Sanji's blood runs cold. She was talking to Zoro still? If… if she was then it's no wonder that he's been so messed up lately, no wonder that he's been going out and getting into fights to deal with his emotions.

"You're still talking to him." He repeats numbly.

"Didn't I just say that? I heard about the show online and asked him about it, told him he should do the show so I could find out what you were like." She says simply.

Zoro's sudden change of heart about the gig comes to mind. He'd been so adamant and then, well, not in favour but hopeless, as if he didn't have a choice about it. Sanji sucks in a sharp breath. She'd… made him do it somehow. He remembers Zoro quietly admitting that he wasn't okay and it's all because of her. She's the one that made Zoro rip all of those songs from himself to try to get the release from them, feelings of being trapped by this thing they had, of hating her and loving her all in one, of wanting her back and wishing he'd never met her. She did this.

Something inside of Sanji's chest lights up like an emergency flare, bright and hot and powerful. He can't put a name on what it is right now but it is _strong_.

"We're not playing this game anymore. Leave Zoro alone." He says. He can hear his voice, he sounds steely and fierce, he's never spoken to a woman this way, never. How could he dare to? Women were supposed to be treated with love and kindness always, no matter how awful they were. The black eye that Zoro went out and got to fix himself from her flashes behind his eyes. The flare in his chest burns a little brighter.

"What?" She says, her voice heavy and sharp.

"Amélie or Baby, whatever you want to go by. I told you this already, I just didn't know who you were. Zoro is my guitarist, you gave him up remember?" He warns, wanting her to stay far away from Zoro, to not speak to him or go near him again.

"You don't know shit Sanji, he chose that stupid band with his talentless friends and those whore women over me, he betrayed me. He should be glad that I still talk to him." She snarls at him, she sounds mean now. Like the others all said she was.

"That's not how I heard it." Sanji says simply.

There's a pause down the line, as if Baby is thinking through what to say next very carefully.

"What has Zoro told you about me?" She asks. Her voice makes the question sound simple and Sanji can't quite see how it wouldn't be but he has a suspicion that something else is going on here though he doesn't know exactly what that might be.

"He's not told me anything about you. Everyone else has told me plenty of things though." He answers, figuring that the truth is the best bet here.

"They all hate me. I told you what it's like being alone, don't you remember what you said? About how anyone who'd hate me would be awful? And here you are already hating me, you don't even know me!" She whimpers and Sanji actually feels bad for her. He doesn't know if all the stuff she said to him about feeling alone was genuine or not but right now it certainly sounds like it was. He doesn't know what to do about that.

"Maybe you should just both stay away from each other, if you and Zoro didn't work out then maybe you're both better off apart. You seemed okay to me but..." He trails off. He doesn't want to say that she's hurting Zoro although she obviously is, he doesn't want to give her the satisfaction if she's malicious and that's her aim. Nor does he want to hurt her if she's just as ruined about their breakup as Zoro obviously is and is just blundering around trying to deal with it just like Zoro is. Either way they need to be apart.

"You're awfully possessive over him, you're just the singer for that stupid band for now. What makes you think you mean anything to him? You're just temporary." She says coldly.

"Maybe, but I hope not." Sanji shrugs.

"Maybe you ought to keep your nose out of places it doesn't belong. Go back to wherever the hell you came from before here, learn to sing and then go join someone else's band. Stay away from Zoro." She says issuing her own challenge, much like his own.

"No." Sanji answers firmly.

The line disconnects and Sanji holds his phone out to see that she's hung up on him.

He chews on his lip. That was so unlike him and yet that road flare in his chest seems to have vanished. He's never like this with women and yet... yet he just was.

Speaking of women should he go and tell Nami about this? She loathes Baby and she'd be livid if she found out that Zoro was still talking to her. But perhaps that's a good reason not to, no reason to get Zoro into trouble, he's just trying to deal with that shitty breakup as best as he can. Poor bastard.

He scrubs his hands through his hair and throws his towel onto the floor and starts to get dressed for the day. He doesn't know what this weird something feeling in his chest is but he's just going to ignore it until it either a) goes away or b) becomes apparent what it is.

By the time he gets down into the kitchen he finds that no one else is up, which is just as well really because of the way his thoughts are buzzing around his head like busy bees. Why is Baby still talking to Zoro? Why is Zoro dumb enough to talk to her? Why hasn't Zoro told anyone about it? Better yet why is he so determined to keep Zoro's secret for him? Surely Zoro wouldn't welcome his intervention and Nami would probably skin him alive if she found out that he'd kept something like that from her.

Still...

Yeah. No, he's not telling anyone. He doesn't even really want to bring it up with Zoro either, that's an awkward and uncomfortable conversation he doesn't really want to have. It just wouldn't go well.

He sets about getting breakfast because that usually calms his nerves a little, or if it doesn't manage to be calming it at least distracts him enough until something else comes along to take his mind off of whatever it is that's upsetting him. In this case his distraction comes in a nice convenient Usopp shaped package.

"Morning." The sharpshooter yawns, ambling into the ornate dining room/kitchen area.

"Morning." Sanji agrees, taking the fresh bread out of the oven and fanning at it with a tea towel to cool it down some. It'll need to get a little cooler before it's suitable to eat for breakfast.

"It all smells great." Usopp hums happily, taking a big whiff of the air with his stupidly long nose. Sanji smiles at the compliment.

"Don't tell him that, his head will explode with glee." Zoro's rough sleepy voice says from the doorway. Sanji looks up to see the cocky bastard in person, smirking smugly at him like some kind of goddamn cheshire cat. Like his imaginary counterpart Zoro prowls into the room looking smug and self satisfied.

"Zoro!" Usopp chirps, happy to see his best friend. Sanji rolls his eyes, Usopp is like a puppy sometimes when it comes to Zoro.

"How did you sleep? You look happy." Usopp coos at the other man. Sanji considers the merits of hanging himself to death with a tea towel, this is so gross.

"What are you after? You're being sweet enough to give me cavities." Zoro says suspiciously.

"Well, you know how you were awesome and took all the guys to get their suits done at that amazing place that Kaya agreed to pay for no matter the cost?" Usopp rambles, looking up at Zoro with cute starry eyes in an obvious attempt to sway him to agree to whatever it is that Usopp is suggesting.

"Yes..." Zoro says suspiciously.

"Well, can you take Sanji there? He needs to come to the wedding and he needs a groomsman's suit. Great! You're the best! Bye!" Usopp chirps and ducks out of Zoro's range.

"Wait- his wedding? A groomsman?" Sanji blinks in shock. He's not even known Usopp for a month, that's a little fast! He hadn't even thought he'd be attending the wedding let alone being something as important as that!

"Fucking WHAT?!" Zoro squawks and dashes out of the room after Usopp.

Sanji blinks in stunned silence and goes back to the rest of breakfast, figuring that he'll hear about whatever has been decided after it has been actually agreed upon. He wonders if this was Kaya's decision or Usopp's, or perhaps they came to it mutually. Still, wow.

He's setting jam and various other breakfast spreads out onto the table along with the fresh loaf of bread, cold meats and fruit when Zoro stomps sulkily back into the room.

"So, suit fitting. After breakfast. I'll tell you where." Zoro grumbles and throws himself into his seat at the table with a level of drama that really wasn't strictly necessary or helpful.

"Really? Wow, it's a little sudden." he says in surprise that Zoro agreed to it. Perhaps Zoro just can't say no to Usopp, it looks a little that way.

"I know things are dire when we're agreeing. Anyway, like I said: you, me, suit shop. You drive I'll tell you where to go." Zoro nods.

"I've been told by confidential sources never to let you give me directions to anywhere." Sanji smirks, setting down some cold juice in front of Zoro, the kind he's seen the moss brain pick every morning.

"What sources? Tell me so I can kill them." the guitarist glowers and drinks his drink.

"Well, that hardly gives me much incentive for revealing my trusted informants does it? You'll just have to live with not knowing." He retorts, sticking his tongue out.

It's a good thing that his tongue is already out because just then Nami and Robin walk in wearing two of the most attractive and incidentally lowest cut tops that he's ever had the fortune of seeing. Oh boy. So much curvy gorgeous flesh on display, he could die a happy man if he could just rest his head betwixt those heavenly boobs.

"You," Zoro informs him curtly, "are a moron."

"Shut your fucking face." Sanji snaps back, whapping Zoro with the tea towel in well deserved revenge for yanking him from his reverie about lovely bodies. Nami and Robin's that is, obviously. Not Zoro's. Something threatens to warm in his chest again and he violently shoves it down, repressing it and hoping to smother it to death. Whatever it is can just GO AWAY.

The others, including one sheepish Usopp, join them for breakfast. It proves to be a normal straw hat breakfast which is to say that there is lots of shouting, stabbing with forks and lots of people losing food to Luffy's pilfering hands. He swears that the boy is made of rubber from how being jabbed with forks in self-defence just seems to bounce off of him. Freak.

Still, after that chaos has passed he clears up the detritus of the straw hat's feeding storm with Zoro at his side and between them they make reasonably short work of it again. He resolutely does not think about what kind of a team they make, certainly not in any kind of affirmations that it is a good one. Nope. He does not do that. At all.

Zoro gives him the name of the suit place which is amusingly named "Fancy Finery" which Zoro spits out like saying the name positively hurts his soul. Sanji Googles the directions to it on his new phone and leads the poor lost little moss ball to his car. They have what passes for a pleasant ride, which is to say that few death threats are exchanged and Zoro does not get naked in the back of his car again. All is going well.

Upon arrival at Fancy Finery Zoro speaks to the man behind the counter who has hair in two colours, right down the middle of his head, scissors and pins stick out of his dual coloured outfit.

"We need another one for Usopp's party." Zoro says grudgingly.

"It's a little late." The guy says, quirking an eyebrow behind his purple glasses.

"Tell me about it." Zoro grumbles miserably, Sanji kicks him in the leg for talking about him so negatively and also talking about him to this bi-coloured freak like he isn't right THERE for crying out loud. Zoro smacks him in the chest in retaliation.

"Inazuma, this is Sanji. Sanji, he'll make your suit." Zoro introduces him grudgingly.

"What, like... custom made and shit?" Sanji blinks in surprise.

"Yes, like custom made and shit." Inazuma answers flatly.

"Uh, sorry." Sanji apologises quickly, well aware of his tendency to run his mouth into cursing without even thinking. It was one of the things that Zeff was constantly berating him about. Stupid old man. And no, this doesn't mean that he was right.

"Come with me." Inazuma sighs, pulling Sanji towards the mirror.

The guy walks around Sanji and inspects him and Sanji finds himself glad that he wore his previously rejected outfit from last night, so he still looks pretty nice. He's not wearing a suit or anything obviously but he doesn't look like a hobo unlike some green headed people that he could mention. His eyes slide to Zoro in the mirror who is wearing jeans with worn out knees that are just ripped right through. There's even little scuffs and tears higher up and Sanji can actually see one rip near Zoro's hip that confirms that Zoro was not shitting him last night when he told him that he doesn't wear underwear. Sanji's toes curl in his shoes, he should not be privy to that information.

"Well, I think I can work with this. You've got a figure for suits so it's not going to be hard to make you look good. Let me just measure you up and I'll see if I've got anything off the rack that I can use to give me a better idea about fit. I've still got a waistcoat from the line that Usopp picked anyway." Inazuma muses and wraps a tape measure around Sanji's chest. Zoro sighs behind him and stuffs his hands in his back pockets and meanders around the shop looking bored. The tape measure goes down Sanji's back and then is stretched up his legs outside and then inside in a way that makes him squeak out of the apparent lack of decency of that man. He definitely does not hear Zoro chuckle behind him at that noise.

"Right, we've got enough here to work with. Obviously not the finished thing but I can work on that afterwards. Take these, go change." Inazuma orders him, throwing a pair of really nice suit trousers at Sanji's face and following it up with a shirt and tie. He gestures to some flimsy dressing room that's really no more than a curtain hanging off a circular pole above a mirror.

Zoro's hand appears on his back, warm and strong, leading him to the dressing room. Sanji goes where he's directed.

"I'm going to find that waistcoat. I'll be back." Inazuma shouts as Sanji pulls the curtain shut.

In the slightly darker environment Sanji starts to strip. He takes his shoes off first and as he crouches down to do so he sees Zoro's shoes not too far from him, they shift as Zoro turns to look at something. The flare in his chest threatens to start burning again and his mind flicks back to the conversation with Baby/Amélie that he had this morning, and damn he really needs to settle on a name for her. Baby seems like the more real one, he's not convinced that the girl he met in the café wasn't just a fake to lure him into her trap... or something. She was right, he was being possessive of Zoro and he had no reason to be. Zoro was a grown ass adult and he could handle his own shit, he didn't need and certainly wouldn't appreciate Sanji intervening in his business without his permission.

Only, he wasn't really. Zoro was still all in shreds from Baby and the last thing that Sanji needed to see, much less be party to, was all of that happening again. Still, he wasn't going to get anywhere with Zoro if he wasn't going to be honest with him. The only way their relationship worked and the only way the music with them flowed was when they were open and honest with each other, the feelings had to be real and not lied about or the music didn't work. That wouldn't keep happening if he started keeping shit from Zoro. So, honestly now, even if it was uncomfortable.

"So... your ex called me this morning." Sanji remarks as casually as one can with that sort of statement. He places his other shoe on the floor and sees Zoro's feet still behind the curtain.

"Oh." Zoro says and Sanji isn't sure if it's a question or just a shocked little sound. He's going to treat it like it was a question.

"I don't know why. She was asking me all sorts of questions, including how you were after last night." Sanji explains, pulling his shirt off of his head.

"What did you say?" Zoro asks quietly. Shit Zoro shouldn't sound like that, quiet and weak. Sanji hates it and he wants to piss Zoro off just to get a reaction from him, just to override Baby's affect on him. Huh, yeah, possessive might be the right word there. He might as well just climb all up on the guitarist and outright hiss "mine!" at her as he hangs off of Zoro's neck. The fuck was up with him?

"Well, I didn't want to tell her you weren't okay obviously. Didn't want to give her that satisfaction. But I wasn't gonna say you were all peachy-keen either." he explains, unbuckling his trousers.

"I'm not sure I've ever heard anyone under seventy say peachy-keen before." Zoro barks out in surprised laughter and pulling the same sound from Sanji in response. Baby's reaction is thoroughly overridden, go him.

"Well, anyway. I told her that you were cool, that you felt the show went awesomely. That we both did." He explains and shucks his trousers off. He's struck with a weird thought that he's talking to Zoro in just his underwear which considering as last night he was having a conversation with Zoro in a similar but non-underwear-having state he's a little concerned that this is becoming a thing with them.

"I may have also said something else." He adds nervously and picks up the nice suit trousers and puts them on, they fit really really nicely.

"What?" Zoro asks warily.

"Well she told me that you knew she would be there, on account of the fact that you're apparently still speaking to her." He says, poking his head out from the curtain to see Zoro's reaction in person. Zoro looks... guilty and slightly scared.

"Don't look like that, I'm not going to tell the others. Nami would probably murder you and anyone in your nearby vicinity if I happened to tell her and as that would probably include myself I'm disinclined to do so." Sanji explains flatly and watches the relief wash over Zoro's face. He ducks back into the shitty little changing booth.

"Mind telling me why you're still talking to the girl that ripped your heart out though?" He questions innocently and slides into the offered shirt.

"It's not really- I don't have a choice." Zoro answers hesitatingly.

"Well, I told her to stop talking to you." he says airily.

"You what?" Zoro yelps in horror and yanks back the curtain to Sanji's changing area.

"OI! Give a guy some privacy, you're lucky I'm pretty much done!" Sanji snaps and shoves Zoro.

"You WHAT?" Zoro repeats through gritted teeth. Sanji sighs dramatically.

"Well, I figured that seeing as how she's ruining your life and how she doesn't seem to happy in hers either I thought it would be best if she just leaves you the hell alone. Though... I put it a little more nicely." he explains.

"I know I might have overstepped the mark there, that's why I'm telling you. I don't know what came over me but I just thought about how wrecked you looked when you saw her and... I don't want to see someone make you like that again. It's awful." Sanji says quietly, looking over at Zoro.

The guitarist's face is an almost comical mix of emotion. He's clearly angry and upset at what Sanji's done but equally there's a sort of exasperated almost affectionate pity there too.

"Just- just promise me you won't talk to her again. You seriously don't want her in your life, I speak from experience here. If she calls just don't pick up and delete her texts without reading them, block her if you can." Zoro says, rubbing his forehead in stress as Sanji does up his tie with practised ease.

"Only if you do the same." Sanji challenges.

"That's none of your business." Zoro retorts.

"Okay, sure. Maybe it's Nami's or Luffy's. I'm sure Usopp would be- mph!" Sanji is cut off by Zoro's hand clapping over his mouth and the thoroughly evil expression on the guitarist's face.

"Don't. Okay, you win. Just keep your yap shut and don't talk to her again. Promise me." He orders and then remove the hand from Sanji's mouth.

"Alright, okay. Scouts honour or whatever." Sanji agrees grudgingly.

"I refuse to believe that you were ever a boy scout." Zoro snorts.

"You got me, I lied. Cuff me up and take me to the cops." he exclaims dramatically, pressing his wrists together in mock surrender for handcuffs and holding them out to Zoro with an exaggerated theatrical sigh. Zoro snorts in laughter and shoves him.

"Asshole." Sanji mutters and regardless of what anyone might accuse him, his tone is not affectionate at all okay?!

He smooths down the front of his shirt and admires himself in the mirror. The fit of everything is quite nice but... hm. Something isn't quite right. Inazuma returns with the promised waistcoat and Sanji slips it on. The outfit comes together a little more. Zoro hums thoughtfully, looking him in the mirror and then running his eyes down the back of Sanji's back.

"Hmm, this is the same green as mine... or close?" Zoro asks, running a hand down the silk back to Sanji's waistcoat. He squeezes his eyes shut as he finally recognises what that flare is in his chest.

It's affection, affection and lust. He wants Zoro. Fuuuuck. This is not good. He'd already oggled the man last night in the car but things must have developed further in Sanji's brain what with the added cocktail of his strangely protective feelings towards the other man when it came to Baby. Shit. He closes his eyes and reminds himself of all the reasons that this can't happen.

One, Zoro is still destroyed from his ex, leaping into another relationship or even into bed with him would hardly be a good or productive idea. Two, his last flame was the singer of their band, Sanji doesn't want to be doubting whether Zoro would be with him or whether he just has some fixation with boning singers. He doesn't want that drama. Three, and perhaps a little more pressing, he doesn't know if Zoro even likes guys at all. So far his entire dating history that Sanji is aware of revolves around women. Or rather one specific woman. There's a chance that he could go both ways like Sanji himself but it's hardly prudent to assume that. Four, he doesn't want to make any kind of move on Zoro and then get kicked out of the band for it. That would so suck.

Fine. That's that dealt with. He opens his eyes and sees Zoro and Inazuma staring at his back discussing whether green is his colour or not.

"Green clashes with everything on me, blue is better." Sanji finally says, turning around.

"I have some samples here..." Inazuma muses and dissappears for a moment before reappearing with a handful of colour swatches. He flicks through to the blue section and flicks through a few.

"That one." Sanji says, reaching out and tugging on it. Inazuma flips to the specific ocean blue that he'd pulled on and holds it up to Sanji's face level, trying to gauge how it looks against his skin and hair.

"Oh." Zoro breathes, making Sanji's body shiver and his eyes immediately snap to Zoro who is looking at him wide eyed. Only then Inazuma pops in between them, blocking Sanji's view of Zoro's wide eyed expression and successfully making him want to kick him in the face for such a transgression.

"That certainly brings out the colour in your eyes, it goes gorgeously with you. You were made for this! I can certainly incorporate this into his suit. There, all done. Now get out of those clothes and my shop whilst I'm still inspired. You can pick it up in two days, maybe less. I'll call." Inazuma fusses, shooing Sanji back into the shitty changing room and pulling the curtains closed and obscuring Sanji's view of the still staring Zoro.

Well. That point number three about Zoro potentially not digging guys might be in question a little more now mightn't it? Hm. Still, he wishes he could have gotten more time to look at Zoro without Inazuma getting between them.

He strips off and changes back into his clothes. By the time he comes back out any hint of Zoro's previous intriguing expression is gone, goddamnit. No, wait, it's better that he doesn't know. He needs to know that he doesn't know whether or not Zoro would be attracted to him because this is not a thing that should happen. No.

"Wanna go home?" Zoro offers, sounding bored, his hands in his pockets.

"Sure." Sanji agrees just as nonchalantly and leaves the shop with him.

"So you're Usopp's best man right?" He muses as they head back to the car.

"Yeah. That's why I'm saddled with last minute additions like your dumb self." Zoro says flatly.

"Fuck you. Anyway, doesn't that mean you're giving a best man speech? I'm looking forward to hearing it now that I'm apparently coming." Sanji grins. Zoro doesn't say anything and Sanji notices that Zoro's gone a little pale.

"You're not nervous are you?" He snorts.

"No. Not nervous. Terrified is perhaps a better word." Zoro mutters and he really does look a little sick.

"How can you be nervous? I just saw you get up on stage and play for loads of people last night without so much as a tremor of nervousness, the only reason you nearly lost it was because your ex showed up. You write songs and play them for crowds for a living. You don't even have to sing or play for this, just talk. How's that hard for you?" He frowns, looking at the petrified looking guitarist.

"Because he's my best friend and I'd do anything to make him happy and... and because no matter what I can't write a word to explain it. I've not written anything. I'm so fucked and I'm trying not to think about it, but thanks for screwing up that plan for me." Zoro snaps and sinks lowly into his seat in a sulk.

"Well, just what were you planning on doing on the day of the wedding then if you hadn't come up with something?" he questions, starting the car up as he eyes the sulking guitarist.

"I was hoping that the earth might plunge into the sun and spare me the agony." the other man offers hopefully.

"You're pathetic. Why don't you just write it as a song and then like... reverse engineer it into a speech?" Sanji laughs at Zoro's stupidity.

When he doesn't get an answer he looks over to see Zoro staring at him like someone seeing the sun for the first time ever.

"You're... you're a genius." He murmurs in awe.

"You're only realising this now? You ought to worship my magnificence. Three worships a day and regular offerings ought to suffice. Chop chop." Sanji grins smugly and acts all superior.

"Or I could... you know, not." Zoro says flatly, whacking him in the arm in what apparently is a playful manner. It kinda stings though, he shoves Zoro in the head in retaliation but he can only do so much after being the one charged with being in control of a motor vehicle. Thankfully though so can Zoro unless he wants them to crash and die in a giant fireball.

Zoro looks a lot happier now and Sanji tries not to take any pride in that. He's really really not going to keep thinking about this.

They get back to the house and Zoro escapes off to the music room, presumably to be productive about writing his best man's speech as a song and then turning it into a speech. Sanji is rather pleased at his own genius where that idea is concerned actually so he rather smugly leaves Zoro to his own devices all afternoon. Which is to say that he goes up to his room, grabs his laptop and dicks around on the internet listening to music, looking at cat pictures and reading the news. He eventually settles upon his local news website, well, really more of an indie newsblog for his city and the wider area around it. He likes it because they've only got a few reporters and they're all really into what they're reporting even if the site as a whole has a sort of irreverent sarcasm to a lot of things that Sanji really enjoys. The music guy always amuses Sanji, both because he's got real passion when reviewing shows and bands (he's responsible for a lot of Sanji's more obscure music tastes) but also because he adores ripping the shit out of celebrities in his pitiful excuse for a celebrity news column. It's kind of a guilty pleasure of his to read it, though today it attracts his attention for all the wrong reasons.

"Attention grabbing singer decides to make out with new fling in public for some goddamn reason" The headline is amusing enough but the picture is thoroughly unamusing Sanji. It's taken today, only a few hours ago really and it's of Baby climbing in the lap of some douche in some bar. Sanji wonders what the hell she's doing in some bar in the middle of the day (surely a sign of someone with a drinking problem) but the next few photos show her in some kind of wanton abandon as this anonymous creep licks her neck and gropes her.

Well. He supposes that she isn't contacting Zoro.

He opens twitter and searches Zoro's username. About two hundred people have tweeted pictures of it or links to the article, some asking if he's seen it. Loads of people exclaiming how she's a bitch or a whore, some of her fans coming in and arguing back, some people pointing out that it's mean to get in Zoro's business about it. Just the internet being the internet really. So. Zoro will know if he looks at his phone.

Sanji tries to convince himself that Zoro doesn't need him checking in on him, that once more he's a grown ass adult. Sanji is already halfway down the stairs.

"Zoro?" He calls when he gets to the bottom of the stairs.

"He's in the music room, but I wouldn't if I were you. He's already bitten my head off for trying to talk to him and only Robin is brave enough to stay though he's ignoring her." Franky calls from the other room.

"Just let him cool down." Usopp shouts through.

Fuck that idea in the eye. Sanji heads off down to the studio wondering why on earth he didn't just go straight there. He comes into the sound mixing half of the room first and sees Robin watching Zoro through the glass, angry guitar sounds can be heard as well as Zoro's frustrated snarl as a note goes sour. Sanji's eyebrows crawl up into his hairline, he's never heard Zoro mess up a note before at all.

"He knows?" He asks Robin, knowing that she will know.

"He knows." Robin says, gesturing to a slightly cracked phone next to her that Sanji dimly recognises as Zoro's. There is a dent in the wall by the door. A mature adult response then.

Zoro snarls a few angry breaths in and out before starting to play a new song, this one Sanji hasn't heard before. He listens carefully, it's kind of sad and melancholy and Zoro's voice is deep and soothing in a way that doesn't speak so much of talent and range as Sanji's own does but just an overwhelming wave of emotion along with a deep bass that makes Sanji's skin break out in goosebumps.

Zoro gets partway through the first verse, screws up a note and begins swearing profusely and kicks his bean bag viciously while continuing to swear.

"Oh no, he's trying to write that song again." Robin sighs softly, resting her beautiful face in the palm of her hand and watching Zoro sadly.

"He's been writing today?" Sanji asks, his interest thoroughly piqued.

"No, he's been trying to write this song ever since Baby broke up with him. He tries whenever he's miserable and it just makes him worse. He's never happy with it and he's never finished it. It's not a good sign." Robin says mournfully.

Zoro starts up again, low notes on his guitar reverberating through Sanji's chest. He's so sad and so talented. He wants Zoro to get this toxic thing out from inside him and turn it into something beautiful like he always does, then maybe he'll feel better. His feet pull him to the door of the studio proper where Zoro is playing, it's open and Zoro's eyes are screwed shut as he plays. Sanji watches and listens, enraptured. The guitar is slow and sorrowful and Zoro's face is a calm sort of agony.

_"It was a beautiful letdown,_

_When I crashed and burned,_

_When I found myself alone unknown and hurt,"_

Sanji starts walking into the room. He's used to the energy Zoro has when he plays and this feels wrong. Zoro feels like he's spinning off kilter somehow, like a child's spinning top wobbling and about to fall. If he closes his eyes he can almost see the spinning of Zoro's creative energy as it's about to crash in and destroy itself. He walks towards the unseeing guitarist and settles himself into his place by his side on the other side of his mic. Zoro continues to sing his sad song.

_"It was a beautiful letdown,_

_The day I knew,_

_That all the riches this world had to offer me,_

_Would never do,"_

Zoro's face contorts slightly, his mouth twisting into some snarl of agony and Sanji feels him spin further out of control. He breathes in Zoro's melody and tries to centre himself in this song that he doesn't know.

_"In a world full of bitter pain and bitter doubts,_

_I was trying so hard to fit in, fit in,_

_Until I found out,_

_I don't belong here,"_

Sanji has to step in, he has to balance out Zoro's crazed depressive energy or else this whole song will crash and burn. He opens his mouth on reflex and sings Zoro's last line back to him, an echo of Zoro's words but delivered with perhaps a little more conviction and he hopes, some hope.

_"I don't belong"_ He echoes. Zoro's eyes snap open and look at him. The guitarist continues singing but Sanji suspects that it's out of a trained reflex not to drop a performance if he can help it.

_"I don't belong here," _Zoro says staring at him in shock.

"_I don't belong." _Sanji echoes again, trying to balance out his energy. Zoro is still staring at him in surprise but his mouth keeps moving.

"_I will carry a cross and a song where I don't belong,_

_I don't belong," _

This time when Sanji hears him starting to sing that line about not belonging again he echoes it at the same time. He uses his higher pitch to pull Zoro's voice and the energy of the song up into something higher, something fiercer and secure than despondent and desperate. Zoro's voice follows him out of habit, used as the two of them are now to matching each other. Zoro's eyes are on him, burning into his skin and he drags out the guitar notes for a few anxious silent beats where Sanji wonders if yet again he's overstepped some boundary. Until Zoro leans forward and sings once more, never once breaking the eye contact that has Sanji pinned to the floor but his words are more energetic, the guitar matching them and Zoro feels stable again.

_"It was a beautiful letdown, _

_When you found me here,_

_Yeah for once in a rare blue moon I see everything clear,_

_I'll be a beautiful letdown,_

_That's what I'll forever be,_

_And though it may cost my soul,_

_I'll sing for free,"_

The end of that verse sees Zoro throw his head back, the last note seeming to rip from somewhere in his chest and it's so emotionally powerful that Sanji just doesn't know what to do with himself. He's struck by that same intense feeling that he was at their gig, that he's never truly been alive until now. That all he was doing before was merely existing and now, here with Zoro, he's really alive. Zoro's words sound perfect and real, half promise and half soul rendering confession and Sanji couldn't want to be anywhere else on the entire planet but right here right now.

"_We're still chasing our tails and the rising sun,_

_And our dark water planet's,_

_Still spinning in a race,_

_Where no one wins and no one's won,"_

"_See, I don't belong here,"_ Zoro sings to Sanji as if explaining it.

"_I don't belong here."_ Sanji sings in agreement, settling his tone in a mirror to Zoro's and stretching it out into Zoro's next words like they're melding into one.

"_Well, I don't belong here."_ Zoro continues and Sanji sings his line again.

"_I will carry a cross and a song where I don't belong,_

_I don't belong,_

_I don't belong here,_

_I don't belong here,_

_I'm gonna set sight and set sail,_

_For the kingdom come,_

_Your kingdom come," _

Every time Zoro sings that he doesn't belong Sanji repeats the words with more feeling, as if he can convince Zoro that he does, he really really does.

"_Won't you let me down yeah,_

_Let my foolish pride,_

_Forever let me down,"_

Zoro's voice is becoming fierce and almost angry, a demand. Sanji doesn't know if Zoro is directing it at him, like he's begging Sanji to let him down.

The idea rockets around Sanji's brain and sticks. Is that why Zoro is strange with him sometimes, like if he predicts that Sanji will hurt him then he can't really? As if he thinks that Sanji has to turn and hurt him just like Baby did.

Zoro's voice is fierce and almost begging, sounding like he just wants Sanji to get it over. Sanji doesn't know if he's reading the wrong thing into this song or not but he locks eyes with Zoro and shakes his head. No. He won't let Zoro down.

Zoro's guitar picks into something almost whimsical and Zoro tilts his head back and laughs a smile bursting over his face and though it looks a little ragged around the edges it's real. Zoro tilts his head back down to him and grins at he sings, the tune much more upbeat now.

"_Easy living, not much like the name,_

_Easy dying, you look just about the same,_

_Won't you please take me off your list,_

_Easy living please come on and let me down,"_

Zoro is circling him as he sings, Sanji having long lost the opportunity to sing along as he's no way of predicting what Zoro will sing next. Zoro's starting to feel off kilter again, manic instead of depressed. He snags Zoro's arm and pulls him in, tries to convey with his touch that he's not going anywhere.

The guitar notes die in the air, ringing out from the instrument as Zoro's hand falls from the strings. For a moment Sanji thinks he's ruined it and broken the song until Zoro leans in, his forehead almost touching Sanji's and sings at him the guitar entirely ignored. His voice is quiet and real. It feels like it's just for Sanji and the burning thing in his chest is threatening to cook him from the inside out.

"_We are a beautiful letdown, _

_Painfully uncool,_

_The church of the dropouts,_

_The losers, the sinners, the failures and the fools." _

Zoro's grin is wry, painful, sad, slightly hopeful but entirely honest and real. Sanji can't repress the thought that he's beautiful and ignores it for a second, he can consider how completely fucked he is later.

"_Oh what a beautiful letdown,_

_Are we salt in the wound,_

_Hey, let us sing one true tune,_

_Yeah!" _

Zoro starts the guitar up again, pulling back from him and yelling that last yeah into the room and making Sanji's lungs ache with the volume. Sanji knows that he's supposed to start singing again and true enough Zoro sings what he can sing back to him.

"_I don't belong here,_

_No, I don't belong here,_

_I don't belong here,_

_Feels like I don't belong here, _

_Yeah, yeah don't belong here,_

_It goes like 'I don't belong here',_

_I don't belong here,_

_No, I don't belong,"_

That last note gets stretched out into something almost like a yell. Suddenly Zoro turns his eyes and that volume on him with a demand.

"_Won't you let me down?"_ He demands with a yell but Sanji just shakes his head and sings back that he doesn't belong, acting like Zoro was singing the last verse instead of this demand to perhaps break his heart now instead of later.

"_Come on and let me down,_

_You always let me down,_

_So glad that I'm let down,_

_Yeah,_

_Come on and let me down,_

'_Cause I don't belong here,_

_Please,_

_Won't you let me down?"_

The guitar music goes on for a second or two before Zoro just lets the notes hang in the air. They're both out of breath and the eye contact is still glued steady.

"Oh my god." A voice from the door says, startling them both out of it. They look around to the door and see the entire fucking band congregated there staring at them like they've both grown a second head each or something. Sanji almost checks.

"You actually… you actually wrote it!" Nami squeaks, throwing herself at Zoro and wrapping her arms around his neck and knocking the breath out of him with a slight 'oof'.

"You actually made him write it." Usopp says instead, staring at Sanji with something verging on suspicion.

"I didn't do anything." He shrugs.

"Yes you did." Zoro contradicts.

"Did not." Sanji counters out of habit.

"Zoro's never managed to write past the first verse and you got him through the whole song entirely new." Franky breathes in wonder.

"Fuck off, no way was Zoro writing that on the fly." He contradicts with a wrinkle of his nose.

"I was." Zoro answers, sounding kind of hazy. Sanji looks over at him and he's got that blissed out look that he saw on Zoro before when he came home.

"Get lost. No one can write and sing and play all at once, each of the three on its own maybe but not all three at once. You can't do that." Sanji frowns.

"He can, he's the only person I know that can. And you managed to get him to do all three at once for the first time in a year." Luffy explains, bright eyed and looking at Zoro with pride in his eyes.

"I thought I'd lost it. Thought I could never do that again." Zoro actually giggles at that, the sound escaping his mouth before he can turn it into an amused laugh.

"Okay, you're kind of high on being able to do that again for the first time in forever. How about you give me Wado before you break her, okay, good." Usopp clucks at Zoro and pulls the guitar from his shoulders.

Zoro's balance shifts towards him and Zoro's big heavy head clunks onto Sanji's shoulder.

"Thank you." Zoro breathes into Sanji's skin, making him shiver and wrap his arms around Zoro instinctively.

"Looks like we got more than just a singer, looks like we got Zoro a genuine muse right here." Brook says softly and Zoro laughs with quiet delight into Sanji's shoulder.

A muse? He was a muse? What… what was that supposed to mean? Zoro shudders against him, wrung out from emotion, singing and the high of creating. Sanji thinks that selfishly if it means that he gets this then he's okay with that.

A/n: thanks to everyone who's reviewed so far, they really do make my day! The song by the way is Beautiful Letdown by Switchfoot


	7. Chapter 7

'The full cleaned up version of this will be up for sale soon, but this is Zoro writing this on the fly with Sanji! Looks like Zoro found his first muse!'

'Ohmygod! they're so cuuute!'

'Can't wait to hear the full version of this, new album?'

'I thought that blonde guy was the singer now, whys Zoro singing?'

'I like Sanji'

'His MUSE?! OMG!'

'Baby was better'

'BABY WAS NOT BETTER! SHE WAS EVILLLL!'

'Sanji's way nicer'

'Is there something going on between these two? THought they hated each other but they look all over each other here'

'Look at the way Sanji grabs him 4:26! They're real cute together, Zoro has a thing for singers huh?'

'Don't make this all gay. Goddamn fangirls'

'^fuck that guy'

'lol'

Sanji squints and tears his eyes away from the comments. Apparently the studio downstairs was filmed as well as recorded and Nami had uploaded a video of their song yesterday. It's already got thousands and thousands of hits. He learns his first lesson of fame, never read youtube comments. Still, he skips ahead to 4:27 and sees that he did indeed grab Zoro's shirt and pull the other man closer to him when he was getting a little too manic for his own good.

He chews his lip and watches the video again one more time. It still gives him goosebumps to hear Zoro singing that song, but he can't entirely argue with all of the commentators, the two of them look really... close. Romantically so almost. He tries to convince himself that it doesn't mean anything, that Zoro was just in the zone of writing, but it's hard to do. Despite all of his previous mental reassurance that he shouldn't be even entertaining the idea that he and Zoro could be anything more than friends he can't help but sort of want Zoro to mean that.

What can he say? He's a romantic.

He wonders if people reading that sort of thing into his and Zoro's strange relationship will harm or help his career. He knows that with big bands there's always fan speculation and the fantasies of said fans, it's just a part of the deal. Still, in the times that he'd allowed himself to imagine being in a band when he worked for Zeff he'd imagined the press hounding him about his numerous love affairs with gorgeous movie starlets or his female band mates. He'd never imagined someone like Zoro.

He decides to give up and closes down his laptop. He ought to track said marimo down and ask him if he's heard about this suit that he's supposed to be wearing to the wedding, he's a little worried that it might not fit and they won't have time to get it fixed, the last thing he wants is to show up at Usopp's wedding looking like some hobo wearing an ill fitting suit. It's been four days since their visit to the suit shop and there's only five days left until Usopp's wedding.

He heads out of his bedroom and turns to go down the stairs, he's learnt by now that if he's looking for Zoro the easiest way to find him is to start at the studio and work outwards. Zoro practices more than any of them and can routinely be found playing his guitars until his fingers go raw, usually someone has to dissuade him from continuing then.

"Get in here!"

That's all the warning that Sanji gets before he's yanked backwards by his shirt collar and into Zoro's bedroom.

"GAH! HEY!" He yelps, staggering to maintain his balance as Zoro slams the door behind him.

"I need your help." Zoro says solemnly and shoves Sanji backwards onto the guitarist's bed.

"What?!" Sanji squeaks in shock, looking up at Zoro looming over him. This- this is completely out of the blue! He's not ready for this! What the hell?!

"I need to write my best man's speech, it's in five days and I've got nothing! You've gotta help me." Zoro insists, falling on the bed next to Sanji and pathetically shoving a pad of scribbled up paper at Sanji.

Sanji gets hold of his runaway pulse and flicks through the notepad, it's full of speech beginnings and scribbled out lines. The further through the book Sanji gets the more frustrated the writing on the paper becomes and the deeper the crossings out become.

"Been a little frustrated have we?" He teases, poking Zoro in the side with the notepad. He flicks through to the most recent page and sees a few hesitant verses sketched out only to be similarly scrawled out.

"I tried writing it as a song and it didn't help at all. Your genius idea was a failure." Zoro accuses weakly, rolling onto his back and looking up at Sanji from the bed.

"Or maybe you're just the failure, don't blame my brilliant ideas." he teases, smacking Zoro lightly on his flat stomach with the notepad.

"Yeah, that was the conclusion that I was coming to as well." the guitarist grumbles unhappily, shooting Sanji a pathetic look.

"So that explains my impromptu kidnapping then." he says with a smile.

"Stop wasting your energy being smug and start helping me." the guitarist orders, poking him in the side.

Sanji looks over Zoro's notes a little more thoroughly, resting the pad on Zoro's ribs. The other man seems to be still trying to write the lyrics like a speech, it's... toe curlingly bad in fact. No wonder he scrawled it out. He can't help but wonder if Zoro has dragged him in here on account of his apparently unofficial position as Zoro's muse. Zoro's not confirmed or denied either way but all through yesterday after Zoro's spontaneous song writing the rest of the band were giving them both sneaky smiles and completely conspicuous stares.

"Where's your guitar?" He asks, looking up from the pad.

Zoro makes a triumphant noise and pulls his most treasured white acoustic up off of the floor and sits up on the bed facing Sanji with his guitar sat easily in his arms. He strums a few chords absently and Sanji smiles and closes his eyes as the rich sound washes over him.

"I think I like that one the best. I mean I know the music that we play mostly is electric but that guitar always sounds so cool, really... warm I guess. If that makes sense?" He adds, opening his eyes self consciously.

"She's my favourite. She was my sister's." Zoro explains with a smile and strums the strings again, a warm happy sound coming from the instrument.

"Well, maybe you should play this song with her then. I mean, you wanna have this song as happy as possible right? It's all about how Usopp is your best friend I guess." He says as Zoro runs through a scale.

"If you think it'll help then sure, but does it matter if we're translating it back to a speech afterwards?" Zoro questions, looking up at him.

"If it changes how you play and write then yeah it does."

He says bossily. He doesn't really have any idea what being a muse involves or if Zoro actually thinks of him like that or if it's just the others that have decided that's what he is.

It's all so confusing. Zoro's watching him though so he should probably say something helpful.

"Usopp's a lucky bastard, getting to marry someone like Kaya." Sanji pouts, in lieu of saying anything helpful.

"Actually... Kaya is the one who's lucky." Zoro comments with a smile and plucks out a few soft notes with idle fingers.

"How so? Kaya's so pretty and smart." Sanji sighs wistfully, he wishes that he had that.

"Yeah, but Usopp would do anything for her. I mean it. He nearly got arrested as a kid for her, he saved her life too." Zoro answers him, surprising Sanji.

"Saved her life?" He asks in shock.

"Mmm. Her parents died when she was young and she got really sick, depression and some kind of rare sickness, she's better now of course but at the time she was really weak. Physically speaking. But Usopp would sneak off and go and see her whenever he could, he'd tell her stories and make her laugh and you've got to understand that this was the kid who was so chicken shit scared of getting caught by the staff at our orphanage that he'd never break a single rule. But for her... he would." Zoro smiles softly, leaning back on the bed and strumming.

"If it meant making her happy he'd do anything." the guitarist adds.

"That's... pretty sweet actually. When did they meet?" Sanji questions, subtly making notes from what Zoro is saying. Scrawling 'anything for her' on the paper.

"When they were about ten, it's the kind of stuff you get in fairytales you know?" the other man smiles gently.

"Like the kind of tales that Usopp tells you mean?" He sniggers. They're routinely regaled over meals of lies of things that Usopp has done in his life, all entirely fake of course.

"I like his lies, my favourite one was about how he's got a huge scar on his chest from a polar bear." the other man laughs brightly.

"Oh and then when Chopper looked for it he said that a witch cursed him to make it invisible so no one would believe him!" Sanji laughs loudly, that was a pretty funny lie, even he had to admit that.

"So how did he save her life then?" he questions, realising that Zoro hasn't explained that rather surprising part of his story. Zoro sits up on his bed again and grins at Sanji around the neck of his guitar, settling it upright in his crossed legs.

"Well, Kaya had this guardian, Kuro. Real mean bastard, always hated Usopp, he never liked the way that Usopp kept her out of her depression when he could and the way he came to see her all the time. He kept calling Usopp a liar and whilst that's... true I suppose, Usopp would never lie to hurt anyone. He does it because he thinks that he's not interesting enough or because he's scared, or he does it to make people happy. He's not malicious with it." Zoro begins. Sanji nods in agreement. The keyboard player might tell some tall stories but he'd had plenty of opportunities to lie to Sanji about Zoro's past or about his role in the band or... well... anything really. But the long nosed musician had been nothing but truthful with him in that respect.

"Turns out that the bastard wanted to force Kaya to write him into her will and then kill her, and Usopp was in his way. You may have noticed that Kaya has more money than god, she gave us this house for example." Zoro gestures to the room around them.

"Mansion you mean." Sanji snorts, though he's hardly complaining.

"Well, you see what I mean." Zoro shrugs.

"But Usopp caught onto this plan, but when he tried to tell people no one believed him, even Kaya didn't at first. Kuro tried to kill Usopp for interfering but between he and I we managed to get enough incriminating evidence to get the cops to arrest him and protect Kaya in one. Though I mostly just did what I was told, Usopp was the brains of the operation." the guitarist admits honestly.

"Well, I'd hate to think what would have happened if it'd been the other way around. Still, it's pretty brave for someone who practically pisses his pants in fear if the toaster pops too loudly." he snickers, remembering that happening just that very morning.

"Exactly, but he'd only ever be that brave for her. She brings out something amazing in him, he becomes the best version of himself for her. That's why she's so lucky to have him, how many real people get someone that dedicated just to them? Don't get me wrong Kaya is great, I love her like family but Usopp would do anything for her, anything in the world." Zoro smiles warmly.

"You're kind of sappy about your best friend you know, I think I really believe Usopp. When I first got here and you were a complete jerk face all the time he was the one who really tried to convince me that you were like this inside. I kind of thought he was lying when he said you were all soft and fuzzy deep down." he admits, smirking at Zoro.

"Speech writing problem solved, the wedding's off as I'm about to murder Usopp. Soft and fuzzy! What the fuck?!" the guitarist snarls all hostile and offended in a way that makes Sanji positively crack up laughing.

"Oi, it's not funny, bastard." Zoro grouses, jabbing Sanji in the side with a foot.

"Oh no, it's hilariously funny. I wonder if Usopp would agree to fight you for Kaya's sake, if you say he'd do anything." Sanji snickers to himself, rolling onto his back and staring up at the ceiling with a smile.

"I'd never hurt Usopp, it was just a joke." Zoro mutters, suddenly sounding serious. Sanji blinks in surprise and looks up at Zoro who is looking suddenly kind of morbid.

"As was that. Anyway, do you think he would?" he asks curiously.

"I guess, but I wouldn't do that." the guitarist answers firmly.

"Hm... does Kaya know that Usopp would do anything for her? Even if it scared the piss outta him?" Sanji muses thoughtfully.

"I hope so." the other man huffs.

"Well, why don't you make sure? Write your song about that. Why don't we tell her that he'd do any lie that he's said if it was for her?" Sanji suggests, knocking against Zoro's knee with the notepad.

Zoro stares at him wide eyed, his mouth slightly open.

"You're... how do you do that? Gimme that!" Zoro squeaks, grabbing the notepad and furiously scribbling down words.

Zoro takes a moment to slide his guitar onto the bed by Sanji's side and then begins to scrawl in earnest onto the pad, all his writer's block apparently gone. Sanji smirks at a job well done and settles his hands over his stomach, letting his eyes flutter closed. If Zoro needs him he'll say.

Between the two of them they end up writing down every lie that they can remember Usopp telling and eventually they have enough to start working the whole thing into a song, though it's hard without a guitar tune. Sanji knows enough music theory though for the two of them to be able to get a rough time signature to the piece before they work on the actual melody and chords. That's more Zoro's job than his.

Until then, he's going to stay right here.

"I don't have a line that fits here." Zoro bitches, scratching his hair in frustration. This song seems particularly difficult to write and Sanji suspects that it's because Zoro's putting too much pressure on himself to be perfect and it's stifling his flow. Still Sanji doesn't mind, it's nice getting to see Zoro's creative process up close.

"So... I'm not sure about this line." Zoro hums thoughtfully, tapping a pen against his lower lip.

"That really helps. I can't see what one you mean." Sanji snorts, he's sprawled on his back with his eyes shut. By now Zoro is sat up and Sanji's head is in his lap.

"I just can't see where to go with it. I might cut it." The guitarist continues as if he hadn't heard Sanji.

"Tell me what line it is!" He demands frustratedly.

_"I have walked a million miles in a hundred pairs of shoes, in search of some universal truth."_ Zoro read out flatly.

"Oh yeah, I liked that one. Where Usopp was pretending that he'd been on some vision quest for musical power or some bullshit in an effort to convince Chopper that he didn't need a music degree." Sanji chuckles to himself.

"But it doesn't exactly relate to Kaya does it?" Zoro reasons.

Sanji closes his eyes and thinks, if Usopp did do such a thing, which obviously he didn't... what could he give up from it for Kaya? He's got an image of the river Lethe in Greek mythology, where you could drink to forget but that's an obscure reference and doesn't directly relate either. Damn, it's a hard one.

"I'll take it out." Zoro grumbles unhappily.

"No, no, give me a moment. He needs to like... get a thing and give it up for her. Knowledge written down or something." He thinks out loud.

Both of them stay mute for a moment before Zoro lets out a frustrated groan and falls over onto his side.

"This isn't working any more." He pouts.

"You're overthinking it that's why, you're stressing about how it has to be perfect and disrupting your natural... I don't know... rhythm or something!" He argues, sitting up and jabbing the morose guitarist in the leg.

"Now, quit your bitching and get your guitar. Maybe if you work out exactly what kind of music you're gonna put to this you can work out the words. Get!" He orders, snapping his fingers and gesturing to the guitar.

"You're not the boss of me!" Zoro argues back, but gets his guitar all the same.

The guitarist sits up with his instrument and settles in place with it. He stares at it in his hands for a moment and looks blank.

"I don't know what to do." He mumbles eventually.

"Well I'm not a guitarist, I don't know! Why don't you just start out with something simple? Something where it's just chords and rhythm or something and work up from there? You can always tweak it and make it more complicated but you're never going to get anything done by staring at it hopelessly like that!" He sighs in exasperation. Zoro really is hopeless right now, he must be so worked up about Usopp's wedding.

Zoro starts playing. It's a simple little melody, just like Sanji asked for. Just strumming through a loose selection of chords. It doesn't quite sound country but it does sound a little love ballad like, which pretty much fits with it.

Zoro keeps the melody repeating and Sanji closes his eyes and lets the melody and theme of the song settle in as he tries to think. He drums a lazy beat out on his thigh as Zoro strums away. He sings and tries to keep the tone relatively stable, almost conversational, it's meant to be a speech eventually anyway.

"_I have walked a million miles in a hundred pairs of shoes,_

_In search of some universal truth…_

_Well… a deity just came to me and handed me a scroll to read-" _He cuts himself off, not knowing where to go next and well aware that nothing he just said rhymed. He's red and about to tell Zoro to ignore what he just blurted out when Zoro continues for him.

"_And I will gladly pass it on to you,_

_Anything for you,_

_All of this is true,_

_But the best story that I could ever tell,_

_Is the one where I am growing old with you." _Zoro sings softly, his eyes shut.

"That's perfect!" Sanji shouts, sitting up excitedly.

"You think so?"

"Yeah!" He agrees enthusiastically

"Well, okay." Zoro mumbles and scribbles down their new lines.

The two of them work at the song for a while until Zoro has to go to work, it's his last day of work before he's got time off for before the wedding. Sanji would think that it was crazy to have that kind of time off if he wasn't well aware that Zoro was the emergency go to person for Usopp and Kaya to fix problems and last minute hitches. Zoro apparently went along and either reasoned with people or scared them into doing what he wanted.

"Oh hey, I'd actually been looking for you before you yanked me in here." Sanji says, leafing through the notebook pages that they've written on.

"What for?" Zoro asks, pulling his big boots on and lacing them up.

"To ask you about that suit, is it ready yet?" He questions, looking up at the other man from his place still sprawled on Zoro's bed cover.

"I'll call them when I'm at work, find out and let you know. It's not like him to keep people waiting." Zoro agrees, standing up with a clomp of his boots.

Zoro shepherds him out of the room and Sanji follows him down the stairs, he keeps Zoro back though, offering him a lift and making him dinner to take to work. He knows that Zoro can eat at work but he really wants the marimo eating more than sandwiches for dinner. He drives Zoro into town and drops him outside the back of his building. It's becoming an awfully strong habit considering how much Zoro hated him so recently. On the way back he finds that he's got their new song stuck in his head, not the one for Usopp's wedding but the one that Zoro had been trying to write for ages and only managed with him. Zoro had named it 'Beautiful Letdown'.

He sings it the whole time while he cooks dinner and only manages to refrain from humming it by getting involved in conversation around the table. He's not getting obsessed, that's a stupid accusation. Who would say something like that?

Zoro's shift finishes late and as Sanji is going to bed he gets a text from Zoro.

'Called suit guy, pick it up tomorrow. - Z'

Sanji texts back right away.

'Kk. Need a ride? It's dark.'

'Nah. Hanging out with Johnny from work.'

Sanji shrugs and settles into bed with a yawn. He's got a different song stuck in his head now, he's got the song that the two of them were working on earlier. He tries to ignore it and go to sleep but the lines and ideas are still rolling around his head.

"Fuck it." He mutters, getting up and walking across the hall to Zoro's bedroom. Ordinarily he wouldn't do this as Zoro's pretty protective of his space, but Zoro's not here and all he wants is the notebook that they were working with earlier. He walks in, still feeling a little guilty, though it's not like Zoro's going to leap out from behind the furniture and catch him or anything. He spots that Zoro's left the hallway window wide open and so he closes it on the way back to his room, shutting Zoro's bedroom door after him so that the other man would never need to know he was there.

He settles back into bed and pulls a blue ballpoint out of his bedside table. He reads over what they've already worked on, which amounts to about half a song. He hums Zoro's simple, slightly folksy and romantic guitar music to himself whilst he reads.

He looks through their previous brainstorming of all of Usopp's lies and hesitantly settles on one. He flips to a new page and tries to write down a potential verse or line for that. He resists the temptation to scribble it out immediately, he's not a songwriter, that's Zoro! His line sucks and doesn't even fit in with the beat of the rest of the song.

He tries to imagine that Zoro is there with him, which is a little odd as he's in bed, but he goes with it. He manages to cut a few words out with some careful rewording and then he's able to make it fit. Agonisingly slowly he manages to pull a few more lines out of himself but it's hard because he doesn't know Usopp or much less Kaya anywhere near as well as Zoro does. But perhaps Zoro can turn his awkward lines into something resembling real music.

He's only got about three verses done when his eyes feel groggy enough to make him check the time, he's shocked to see that two hours have gone by and it's two in the morning! He rubs his tired eyes and drops the notepad onto his bedside table, resolving to show his work to Zoro tomorrow and hope that the other man would take it well. He snuggles into the pillow, turns off the light and drifts into an easy sleep.

Sanji startles awake, not quite sure what it was that woke him. He peers blearily around the dark of his room and gropes around in the blackness for his phone, he bats at it, causing the time to light up on the screen. It's two thirty in the morning. What woke him?

He grumbles and rubs at his eyes, fully intent on drifting back into sleep until he hears a thump outside of his room.

His body filling with adrenaline he sits up out of bed and gets to his feet as silently as he possibly can. He creeps over to the door and hears Zoro's bedroom door open and shut. He opens his door silently and peers out into the hallway. The big window at the top of the hall is wide open, the curtains billowing in with the night breeze. That certainly was shut when he went to bed. He gets a little closer to it and sees a big boot print on the windowsill and hand prints on the outside of the glass, it's then that he realises just how close that big tree by the house is to the window, a good climber could easily climb that and get into this window.

Are they being burgled?!

A clatter from inside Zoro's room makes Sanji jump and, knowing full well that the guitarist might bite his head off, he opens Zoro's bedroom door. The other man is nowhere to be seen, but his bedside light is on and casting a dim orange glow across the room. Sanji's foot catches on some clothes strewn on Zoro's floor, not unusual, Zoro wasn't exactly fastidiously tidy, but this shirt had blood splattered all over the front. Sanji's heartbeat is now firmly in the terrified category.

"Zoro?" He calls out, his voice high with worry. He moves further into the room to investigate and sees light spilling out of their shared bathroom. He sneaks towards it wary of any intruder.

"Zoro?" He repeats, opening the door slowly, but no one replies or attacks him with a knife or anything.

He comes into the bathroom to find Zoro leaning over their sink, bare chested, his bloody shirt discarded before.

"Go abay." Zoro says thickly, his voice sounding weird.

"Zoro, are you okay? The window was open and there was blood, what happened?" Sanji asks, reaching out to touch Zoro's shoulder.

"Leab me alode!" Zoro snarls thickly, lashing out.

"ZORO!" He gasps in horror. As Zoro turned to shove him away Sanji got a good look at Zoro's face, blood is trickling from his nose, though it looks like earlier it was positively streaming if the bloodstains on his skin are anything to go by. It looks like he got hit in the face by a baseball bat or something!

"What happened to you?" He asks in fear.

"I god punched, obviously. Dink my nobe migd be broken." Zoro slurs miserably.

"Shit!" Sanji exclaims and goes quickly to the airing cupboard and pulls out a clean face towel. He pushes Zoro gently onto the edge of the bathtub so that he can get to the tap. He dampens the cloth and turns to Zoro with it.

"Hold still." He orders, touching Zoro's chin lightly and rubbing the face towel over Zoro's cheek. The blood comes with it easily, making him look a little less like a car crash victim.

"Wad are you doing?" the guitarist asks weakly, wincing as Sanji touches the more sensitive skin by Zoro's nose.

"Helping you obviously. Shut your yap or I'm gonna get this in your mouth by mistake." He snaps and continues cleaning the other man up.

After a little cleaning he gets most of the blood off, there are a few scratches on Zoro's cheek and one or two high up on his shoulder but Sanji can't identify what they're from. More concerning is that Zoro's nose is split across the bridge and swollen rather painfully. He can't get too close to it without Zoro flinching away, though he's being remarkably passive considering.

"Okay... let's see if that's broken." He says softly and touches Zoro's nose, the other man instantly pulls away.

"Stop id." Zoro grumbles, shoving him back.

"Well do it yourself then! Feel it and tell me if it sounds crunchy or if it's moving more than it should or if it's not straight." He sighs exasperated and turns to wash the wash cloth out in the sink. He sees Zoro move to gingerly touch his own nose but doesn't stare at the other man.

"I don' know, 's swelled up." Zoro sniffles, promptly starting another nosebleed.

"Oh god, here, hold this until the bleeding stops again. Don't sniff. I'm gonna clean out these scratches." Sanji announces, shoving the clean washcloth into Zoro's hands and opening up the rather well stocked medicine cabinet to pull out cotton swabs and alcohol. He dips one in and settles on the rim of the bath by Zoro with some packaged plasters on his knee. The scratches don't seem to be too deep but they're full of black stuff, Sanji doesn't know what it is but it seems flaky and shiny, like polish or paint perhaps? Maybe Zoro got shoved into some railings or a gate.

"What happened? How did you get punched in the face?" He questions, trying to distract the other man as he swabs out the wound and covers it up with a sticking plaster.

"You mean what did I do?" Zoro asks, pulling the cloth away, his voice sounding somewhat clearer now. Sanji's loathe to consider more blood to be a good thing but it seems like Zoro needed that out of his nose.

"No, I meant what happened. Do you know the person that punched you or was it some stranger? Either way you should go to the cops. Oh shit, I probably should have taken a picture of you for evidence before I started this. Crap, never mind." He says shaking his head, it was too late for that now.

"I didn't do anything. Just walked in an-" Zoro punches the air.

"Someone just hit you in the face for no reason at all? What a psycho. You should seriously go to the cops." he advises sagely.

"I'll pass." the other man mutters.

Sanji shrugs, he supposes that it's Zoro's choice but in fairness there's not a lot of evidence and if there wasn't any security cameras where it happened then it's Zoro's word against whatever guy did this to him. Still, it makes Sanji really mad to see him hurt like this.

"Why're you doin' dis?" Zoro asks through the wash cloth that he's pressed back against his face.

"You gedding off on my pain or whad?" He accuses through the wash cloth.

"Why on earth would I get off from hurting you? You're my friend, the last thing I want to see is you in pain." Sanji balks in shock. Zoro regards him warily through his good eye which is starting to swell a little itself.

"Suppose." He mumbles in something that might pass for apologetic if Sanji was desperate enough to hear that kind of thing, which he is.

"Go open the coffee box by my desk." Zoro orders him, standing up and dropping the thoroughly blood soaked face cloth in the sink and standing before the mirrored medicine cabinet to get a good look at the damage.

Sanji, for once, does as he's told. He goes back into Zoro's room and spots the box of coffee. He crouches down to pull the top of it off but it won't open. Confused he kneels down and looks at it, there's a seam running along the front side of it that shouldn't be there and also now that he's this close he can hear some strange whirring noise coming from within. Curiously he puts his fingernails in the seam and levers it open, this time the front opens smoothly, hinging on its far edge like a door.

To Sanji's surprise he discovers that it's a mini freezer with a fake covering. He didn't even know that you could get mini freezers, mini fridges sure, but not this. He looks inside and sees a secret stash of frozen ice pops, sensible if one intends to keep the fair share from Luffy, and two clear bags filled with water. He figures that it's the water bags that Zoro sent him in here for rather than an emergency need for frozen treats.

He picks it up in confusion and looks at it, it can't be water filling this bag or else it surely would be frozen. It feels incredibly cold though and it occurs that it might be useful for putting on Zoro's busted nose, which was probably why the guitarist sent him for it in the first place. He shuts the mini freezer and returns to the bathroom.

"What is this?" He questions, handing it over. Zoro places it on the edge of the sink and goes back to carefully cleaning the cut on the bridge of his nose, thankfully it does look more like a cut than the skin having split from his nose breaking, which is good news for Zoro.

"Home made ice pack, it's mostly cheap vodka so it doesn't freeze. Gets really cold though." Zoro answers, tossing some more cotton buds away.

Zoro opens the medicine cabinet again and pulls out the tub of witch hazel gel that Sanji had noticed before. He watches curiously as Zoro gingerly rubs it in on the unbroken skin of his nose and under each eye.

"Quit staring, it makes the bruising go away quicker." Zoro informs him stroppily.

"I'm just concerned is all." Sanji argues back. Why is Zoro being so goddamned hostile about this? It's not his fault that Zoro got punched in the face and it's certainly not Zoro's if he just got decked the moment some stranger came up to him, so there shouldn't be any pride at stake here. Yet all of a sudden Zoro is acting as prickly with him as he first did when Sanij first joined the band.

"Don't be, I'm used to this." Zoro says dismissively.

"Just how often do strangers punch you in the face that you're used to this? You do seem to be pretty practiced at this, and I've seen pharmacies less well stocked than that cupboard. And why are you climbing in through top floor windows to get home when you have a perfectly good front door?" Sanji asks, voicing his concern finally as he watches Zoro stick the cut on his nose back together with an adhesive butterfly stitch.

Sanji watches the ripple of tension run through Zoro's muscles and he sharply pulls the cupboard door open, removes the painkillers, downs two and replaces them before turning angrily back to Sanji.

"Just when did any of this become your business or your problem? I didn't ask for your help and you're lucky I've not kicked you out for barging in here anyway!" Zoro yells at him in accusation.

"I'm just trying to help!" Sanji reasons, feeling his hackles rise, why does Zoro have to be such an ungrateful bastard?!

"I don't need your help! I don't need anyone's help! I've got this under control so just get out!" Zoro orders him loudly and shoves Sanji firmly through the bathroom door that leads into his bedroom and slamming it behind him.

Sanji stalks angrily back to his own bed. Fine, if Zoro wants to suffer on his own then he could be Sanji's guest! He yanks back his blanket and throws himself into bed and snaps the bedroom light off. It takes him quite some time to get off to sleep this time, stewing in the dark about Zoro is hardly the way to a restful night's sleep.

A warm hand on Sanji's bare shoulder wakes him, he blinks his eyes in the early dawn light and rolls onto his back to see Zoro standing by the side of his bed. His nose looks a less swollen than last night, though his previously good eye is starting to bruise. He remembers that he's angry at Zoro.

"What do you want?" he grumbles, rubbing his eyes and sitting up. He feels completely exhausted.

"I'm sorry you got upset." Zoro says stiffly and begrudgingly.

"That's kind of a non-apology. You're not apologising for being a jerk, you're just faking an apology and making it sound like I reacted unreasonably." He points out flatly.

"I wasn't in the best of moods, I had just been punched in the face." Zoro argues a little weakly.

"Seeing as it wasn't me who did that to you it wasn't my fault. Now either apologise properly or piss off." He grouses, scowling up at the guitarist who can't quite seem to meet his eyes.

"I'd only been trying to help you after all, but apparently you're too high and mighty for that!" He adds a little spitefully, but in fairness to him Zoro was a real jerk to him.

"I don't need help, I can handle this on my own." Zoro retorts quickly.

"Fine. Go handle it elsewhere!" Sanji snaps and falls back into his bed and rolls onto his side.

He doesn't hear Zoro leave and after a few moments the edge of his bed dips down, Zoro's sat on his bed! He's all but ready to kick Zoro off of his bed when the other man speaks.

"I don't need your help and I'm not used to having help. But… I appreciate the spirit that you offered it in. Even if it was entirely unnecessary and fussy." Zoro says flatly, staring straight ahead and not looking at Sanji at all.

Sanji squints at Zoro, trying to read the other man.

"That's the best that I'm going to get out of you isn't it?" he snorts, leaning up on his elbows and grinning a little despite himself.

"Pretty much." The guitarist sighs, a small smile tugging at his lips.

"How is your face anyway? Can I see?" Sanji asks.

Zoro shrugs noncommittally and turns slightly in Sanji's direction. Sanji kneels up to inspect his guitarist's battered face. The mysterious small scratches on his skin seem to be knitting together quite well, they'll probably be gone in a few days. The one on his nose looks a little worse but a lot better than yesterday, those little adhesive stitches apparently really do help wounds heal shut.

"Don't tell the others. Please?" Zoro asks him softly, his eyes looking hopeful.

"They're only gonna have to look at you to know something happened Zoro, you look better than last night, but not that much better." Sanji frowns at the other man, sitting back into his bed as he does so.

"You let me worry about that, just promise you won't tell." Zoro repeats, a frown creasing his face.

Sanji considers this for a few moments before a brilliantly sneaky idea hits him. He grins at Zoro and the other man looks at him suspiciously, evidently some of his cunning is showing through on his face.

"Okay, you can buy my silence, for three questions. I ask you three questions and no matter what you have to give me a completely honest answer, you're an honourable man right? You wouldn't go back on an agreement right? Deal?" He offers, holding his hand out to Zoro in offer.

"Fine. Ask away." Zoro says looking displeased but having to agree either way.

Sanji regards Zoro carefully, this is a rare opportunity and not one that would warrant wasting. He needs to choose his questions and choose them right.

"First question, why don't you want the others to know?" He says carefully, that seems to surprise Zoro but the other man smiles at Sanji, clearly thinking that Sanji's wasted a question.

"Because they'd just ask questions that I don't want to answer, and it'd worry them when they don't need to be. Like I said, I don't need to help and if they knew they'd be doing nothing _but_ offering help." Zoro answers.

"The person who punched you in the face… have you met them before? And if so who are they?" Sanji asks after some consideration.

"You really wanna burn your last two questions on that? Because that's two, not one." Zoro says instead of answering.

"Shit, okay. Yeah… just the first one then. Did you know the person who punched you?" Sanji winces, he'd hoped that he'd get away with that but evidently not.

"I've met the person who punched me before, yes." Zoro nods.

"One last question, you better think of something a little more interesting than finding out about some meaningless punch." The guitarist grins teasingly.

Shit. He's right, Sanji's kind of wasting these questions. He can't think of a really great one on the spot and if he asks Zoro who punched him he's liable to get a name of someone that he's never met and it won't mean jack shit to him and it'll be a total waste of a question! Damn, if only he had more time! Oh… wait!

"I… think that I'll hold onto that last question. I'll ask you something at some point in the future, tell you that I'm cashing my 'Zoro has to answer and honestly too' question in. Until then, you're free to go, I won't tell anyone about your late night escapades. Not that I'll do you any good, they're only gonna have to take one look at you to know." He snorts.

"You- ugh. Fine. But you better keep your yap shut or I won't ever answer your mysterious third question. You let me worry about not getting caught. Later cook." Zoro says, standing up and walking into their shared bathroom through Sanji's door.

Sanji shakes his head. He is now even less sure about what to make of Zoro except for the fact that he's prone to completely bonkers mood swings and is out of his tree. He's also capable of being a massive jerk, which Sanji already knew, and also capable of being quite sweet as he's so recently discovered. He… still kind of likes him though.

Whatever. He isn't awake enough to deal with this horseshit. He falls back onto his pillow and decides to sleep for another hour. This time sleep comes a little more easily, though Sanji would punch you in the mouth for suggesting that it's because he's on better terms with Zoro now. Totally not true.

When Sanji eventually gets up and drags his body into some clean clothes and walks his tired legs downstairs he can't see Zoro anywhere. His room is empty of crazy guitarists (or sane ones for that matter) and his blood stained clothes are suspiciously missing. Not that Sanji looked of course. That would be crazy.

He saunters downstairs and heads into the kitchen to cook breakfast. He's in the mood for a proper challenge this morning so he goes about making his bandmates custom made pancakes. The smell of cooking pancakes soon draws everyone in, all crowding around Sanji's kitchen island asking for more or for their own toppings.

Sweet glace cherries for Chopper, mikan slices and sugar for Nami, chocolate sauce and bacon for Luffy, dark chocolate for Robin, plain lemon and sugar for Brook, clove and cinnamon powder goes into Franky's mix, Usopp has maple syrup on his. Sanji's so busy cooking up a storm that he doesn't even hear Zoro come into the kitchen though that could well be due to the noisy men in the room scarfing down their pancakes like sloppy pigs.

"Lemon on mine." Zoro says from behind him, making Sanji squeak out a yelp and nearly spill pancake batter.

He whirls around to look up at Zoro and is stunned to see Zoro looking… normal.

He's wearing glasses, which he doesn't usually do. Sanji notices that the thick-ish plastic frames sit right on the bridge of Zoro's nose covering the cut that Sanji knows is there. Surprisingly his "good" eye looks completely fine, though there's a slight change in skin tone now that Sanji's looking at it and he realises with some sense of shock that Zoro's wearing that make up that he'd spotted in the medicine cabinet before. Where the new bruise from the trauma to Zoro's nose had started coming up under his previously bad eye Zoro had left, it blended in just fine with the other bruise. His nose also looks unblemished and unbruised.

If he wasn't looking for it and didn't know he'd be none the wiser! How and more importantly why is Zoro this good at this?

"What are you gawping at?" Zoro challenges, his gaze stern.

"Your stupid face." Sanji shoots back, his answer half true. He spins and faces the stove again his mind whirring. He flips a pancake on auto pilot and retrieves the lemons that he already had out for Brook's lemon and sugar pancakes.

He hears Zoro walk off and sit down at the table with a scrape of his chair.

"Hey! You're wearing your glasses! You know you should wear them more often, I hope you haven't had another migraine to make you do it though…" Chopper fusses from behind Sanji.

"Not really, just had a little trouble reading some really fucking small print in the only English section of the register repair manual at work. Thought I ought to get into the habit again." Zoro lies incredibly convincingly, Sanji might seriously need to consider who the liar was in this band, Usopp or Zoro. At least Usopp's lies were obvious, with Zoro who knew?

"Aww, getting old Zoro?" Nami teases affectionately.

"I'll just let all the people older than me around the table take offence to that instead. Robin?" Zoro laughs.

"Hmm, yes Nami, care to explain?" Robin purrs dangerously.

"Eheheheh…" Nami laughs weakly.

Sanji returns to the table with more pancakes for everyone, including Zoro in this round. Sanji's own pancakes are whipped cream and strawberries. He eats as everyone else apparently doesn't notice Zoro's transformation into a Zoro who looks like he hasn't had seven kinds of shit punched out of him.

"Zoro, is that black eye of yours getting worse?" Robin questions quietly. Sanji keeps his head down and continues eating, Zoro should have known better than to try to outsmart Robin! Still, he made a bargain so he's not going to give Robin any reaction at all, instead he's just going to trust that she's smart enough to work it out.

"Is it?" Zoro asks, sounding surprised. Sanji watches him out of the corner of his eye as Zoro gently brushes the edge of his bruise.

"I don't know, these things heal all weird you know. Maybe it's just spreading a little as it fades? I'll keep an eye on it." Zoro says innocently, striking Sanji again with just how good a liar he is. Sanji really doesn't like this deceptive side to his guitarist, he wants to scream out that Zoro is lying, that he's really hurt but he can't. He made a promise that he assumed he wouldn't have to keep because he'd thought that everyone would know what had happened to Zoro just from looking at him. But they don't and he can't say a WORD!

"Ahaha, good one Zoro." Brook chortles.

"That wasn't supposed to be a pun." Zoro laughs in surprise.

"But it was a very good _pun_!" Brook says, emphasising the word pun in place for one and then laughs obnoxiously.

Sanji swallows his last pancake and picks his plate up and starts to wash up. He tunes the others out as they all come up and place their dishes at his side and Zoro soon steps to the other side of him and wordlessly starts drying.

Sanji doesn't start up a conversation with Zoro. He wants to know just how often this happens and how often Zoro gets caught, more importantly how often _doesn't_ he get caught? He's clearly an experienced deceiver in this kind of thing, and his ability to disguise his injuries is incredible and speaks of practice. But why?

He doesn't know if he wants to burn his last question on that either. It's too vague and Zoro could easily truthfully answer him but tell him nothing of use. He could ask Zoro why he's so good with hiding his bruises and Zoro could honestly answer 'practice' and Sanji would be none the wiser. No. He needs to know more before asking about this. It seems like he's going to need his entirely imaginary detective hat again. He has a mystery to solve and he wants to solve it soon.


	8. Chapter 8

Sanji regards himself in the mirror with an appraising eye.

The suit is nice of course, very nice. The shirt is smooth and expensive feeling, a deep ocean blue that does wonders for him, his tie is skinny and black and tucked behind an elegant perfectly fitting black waistcoat. The waistcoat itself has the same deep blue silk trim and the entire back panel is made of that silk. Throughout the fabric of the waistcoat and the suit trousers with it there are thin ever so barely there blue lines. When paired up which his shiny black shoes he looks dapper as fuck.

That however is not what's interesting him. What is interesting is Zoro's reflection that he can see in the mirror, how Zoro is staring at him as if he's terribly torn between ripping that suit off of him and just admiring him in it forever. He twists a little under the pretext of examining a different angle of the suit and watches the blush stain Zoro's cheeks.

"I think the blue goes very well." Inazuma interrupts, twirling Sanji around and inspecting the suit.

"It was certainly worth the time that you spent on it! It fits perfectly." Sanji grins and glances at Zoro. Zoro's not looking at him now, instead staring resolutely down at his phone, his slightly pink ears the only hint that there's anything close to a blush on his face.

"What do you think Zoro?" Sanji asks with an innocent smile because he's nothing if not incredibly evil.

"Hn. As long as it fits, you gotta wear the thing all day, not me." Zoro grunts and taps at his phone, as if he's barely able to bring himself to give even the tiniest fuck about Sanji in his suit. Sanji is not convinced.

"It's perfect." He reassures Inazuma.

"Obviously." Inazuma agrees and herds Sanji back to the changing area.

"So the wedding is this Sunday, only three days away! Are you excited Zoro?" Sanji asks, pulling his tie off and throwing it over the top of the railing so that it hangs there.

"Fucking ecstatic, in four days I'll never have to have an argument with anyone again about whether something is wine coloured or burgundy. And if anyone ever tries to have that conversation with me again I can just punch them in the throat." Zoro says tensely from the other side of the curtain.

"What about when it's your wedding?" Sanji asks curiously.

"_IF_ I get married I'm fucking eloping. I can get married in the middle of the fucking ocean on a boat so that I can be as conceivably far away from any flower shop ever. In fact, I want to get married in whatever place in the ocean is as humanly far away from florists as it's possible to be. That's what I want." Zoro growls.

"I'm sensing some hostility towards the florist here, correct me if I'm wrong." Sanji sniggers and slides out of his suit trousers.

"I will straight up murder that man with pruning shears if he fucks up one more time, I swear to god." The other man snarls whilst Sanji slips his shoes off.

"Down boy. Just think of how happy Usopp and Kaya will be." Sanji says soothingly as he shimmies into his jeans.

"No, they're going to be devastated because it's three days until the wedding and I still don't have a best man speech, _which you were meant to be helping me with,_ and whenever I talk too loud my voice goes all weird because of being punched in the face. So no, not feeling happy about it." Zoro grouses.

"You mean I who offered my services to help you entirely out of my own generosity and magnanimity and shit even when I didn't have to? Especially as I'm not the moron of a best man who left something like the speech to the last possible second. Is that what you mean? Say yes." He orders, sliding from behind the curtain and putting his shirt on over his head as he does so.

"Yes." Zoro says between literally gritted teeth.

"Good boy. Let's go home and write your speech then so you don't have a fucking aneurism and die before Sunday, yeah?" He smirks, patting Zoro on the head. Zoro looks about two seconds away from punching him. It just makes it better.

Inazuma folds the clothes with the ruthless efficiency of one incredibly used to taking care of expensive items and handing them off to people that don't fully appreciate them. Sanji takes the suit bag and is sure to thank Inazuma sincerely, it's rather impressive of him to whip up such an amazing bespoke suit so quickly and so well after all.

He leads the rather sulky marimo back to his car and the two of them start to drive home. Sanji rolls down the window and lights up a smoke as they drive, he can't help but notice Zoro giving him a good dose of side eye for it though.

"Don't even get on my case about smoking, I don't want to hear it." He warns, glaring back.

"Not my problem if you wanna fuck your voice up so it craps out on you in a few years." Zoro grumbles, slouching down in his seat.

"Well I'll be interested to hear how well you sing after your nose eventually does break from all of your brawls." He shoots back as he grips the steering wheel a little tighter.

"That's none of your business!" the guitarist snaps at him.

Sanji just smirks and inhales on his cigarette, waiting for Zoro to get the point.

"…Touché." Zoro mutters eventually.

"Knew you'd get there in the end, moss head." He snickers.

"Oi, don't call me that." The other man protests, shoving him slightly.

"Oh, I'm sorry greenie." Sanji amends insincerely.

"OI!"

This continues for the whole ride home with Sanji thinking up every variation upon green or moss or seaweed that he possibly can whilst Zoro protests louder and more vehemently each time. By the time they get back Sanji is pretty sure that Zoro doesn't even remember that he was wound up about the speech or the wedding.

"So I suppose that I ought to help your incompetent ass write this speech song thing then, only out of the goodness of my own heart of course." He sighs with a barely suppressed smirk as he gets out of his car. Zoro is beyond words now and just lets out this feral kind of sound and chases Sanji into the house. Trying to laugh and escape is hard work so on the chase up to their floor Zoro almost catches him a few times.

Eventually Zoro does, just as Sanji is getting into their hallway too. A strong hand catches in the back of his shirt and yanks him back hard. His back collides with Zoro's strong chest and all of the fight goes out of him as Zoro's strong arm wraps around his ribs, pinning him there.

"Think you're so fuckin' quick, dumbass." Zoro pants against Sanji's neck, sending Sanji's thoughts scattering like dropped marbles.

He only manages to haul everything back together when Zoro thunks him on the top of the head with a fist, not too hard though. It still snaps him out of his haze and he has the forethought to elbow Zoro in the stomach and escape laughing.

"So come on then." He grins, leading the way into Zoro's room, trying to ignore all of the other connotations that his words and actions could have. Zoro follows him with his almost trademark scowl and it's only when the back of Sanji's knees hit the edge of the bed that he remembers that their notebook isn't in here, it's still in Sanji's own room by his bedside table.

"Oh!" He gasps, ducking under Zoro's arm and darting out of Zoro's room, across the hall into his own. He hears Zoro's distant 'hey!' but ignores it. He snags the notebook and returns.

"I borrowed this last night before you came home. I… tried to write some stuff because I couldn't sleep but I don't know if you'll want to use any of it. I mean, you're the writer here, not me." He hedges awkwardly, holding the notebook out but not quite wanting to give it to Zoro.

As Zoro tries to take it Sanji puts up a little grip resistance, suddenly his idea of trying to write some stuff for Zoro seems incredibly silly and he wants to pull the book back, rip out the page that he wrote on and eat it so that no one else ever has to see it. Seriously, what was he thinking?!

Zoro takes it from him though, apparently none the wiser to Sanji's internal turmoil. He flops back on the bed to read it and Sanji anxiously sits down next to him. Every second that passes whilst Zoro reads his work is sheer agony. It doesn't help that Zoro doesn't say anything either, his face remains expressionless and after a minute or so Zoro sits up and wordlessly grabs his guitar. He settles himself in the middle of the bed and after a moment of placing his fingers carefully on the fretboard he strums through the loose tune that he'd been using before. As he does so he reads through what Sanji has written, humming along softly.

Sanji tries to restrain the urge to leap across the bed and snatch the whole thing back but Zoro's already read it now and why on earth did he show him?!

"You've got an extra syllable here and I think you're about one short here… so you might wanna change those words a little but… it's good. I like it. It's really good actually." Zoro says softly, running his finger over the paper.

"Really?" Sanji asks weakly.

"Yeah, I guess you really were serious about helping me get this thing finished. Thanks." Zoro says, looking up at him from the paper with a small smile that makes Sanji melt a little bit inside.

"Well, only 'cause you clearly weren't going to finish it on your own." He forces out, desperate to say something but his only response coming straight from the sarcastic part of his brain.

"Shut it." Zoro retorts, leaning over and shoving Sanji in the head.

The two of them run over synonyms for the words that Sanji had picked until his verses fit well within the song. It's nearly done and it only takes a few more hours work of pouring over their lyrics to get it to the stage where they're happy with it. Sanji's hardly going to complain that their combined weight stretched lengthways across the bed makes them roll in a little closer to each other than they'd intended. So much so that they're pressed together at their sides from shoulder to foot.

"I'm gonna run through this." Zoro says slowly, sitting up on the bed once more and getting his guitar. He starts the intro to the song and then begins singing, he only gets about halfway through the song before his tone starts sliding all over the place and he has to pinch the bridge of his nose in pain. His nose might not be broken but it still clearly hurts and it's affecting his singing.

"Shit, I thought I'd be over this by now." Zoro growls.

"Since last night?" Sanji questions incredulously.

"Well it's not like it's broken, I should be able to work through this." The guitarist says stubbornly. Sanji rolls his eyes, Zoro is the biggest moron that he's ever met, as if you can just keep going through an injury like that.

"It doesn't matter Zoro, you weren't going to sing this anyway, you were gonna turn it into a speech remember?" He reminds the other man.

"Shut up. You sing it." Zoro orders, shoving the paper into his hands and resetting the position of his own hands on the guitar.

"I can only do one of those at a time, idiot." Sanji points out flatly.

Zoro ignores him and starts the guitar intro. Sanji comes in when Zoro did on his turn. He keeps his voice soft and wistful, he tries to channel the feeling that he thinks that Zoro feels. He remembers how gentle and pliant the guitarist can be when it comes to Usopp. He remembers how Usopp can fuss over Zoro when the green haired idiot would snap at anyone else doing it. Usopp was Zoro's oldest and closest friend and now he's getting married and despite all of the stress of helping to arrange the wedding Sanji knows that Zoro couldn't be happier for him.

He supposes that he's sort of channelling the wrong person here. He's supposed to be singing the song as if he was Usopp to Kaya but he doesn't know enough about their relationship to do that. Despite quite liking the keyboard player he's not has as much interaction with Usopp as he has had with Zoro and that interaction hasn't been as deep as his and Zoro's has. Still, it doesn't matter if the love that he's feeding into the song is Zoro's platonic love for Usopp instead of Usopp's romantic love for Kaya, all that matters is that the love in the song feels real and believable.

He runs through the song and when they get to the end Zoro gives him an assessing look for a little while.

"Thinking of changing something? Did one of those lines not sound quite right?" Sanji guesses as Zoro's considering look.

"No, it was perfect." Zoro says dismissively.

Perfect?

Sanji's face reddens at that strong a compliment. Zoro said that it was perfect.

"I just... I don't want to screw this whole speech up and writing and playing guitar is what I'm good at, it's one of the reasons that me and Usopp became friends in the first place, our shared love of music. I think... it might be better if I play it and you sing. I mean, I can introduce and explain it but... would you sing for me?" Zoro asks him seriously, his face painfully earnest.

"At Usopp's wedding?!" Sanji squeaks in terror.

"Yes, I know it's a lot to ask but... your voice is perfect for this song and you helped write it too. I want the whole day to be as good as I can make it for them and... though it pains me to admit it... you're the better choice for this than me." Zoro says with a wince.

"Zoro..." Sanji breathes in shock. Zoro's actually said... he's admitted that Sanji should be the singer, and he's getting the feeling that Zoro doesn't just mean for this one song. He's pretty sure that Zoro is speaking generally about the band. He never thought that he'd actually get to hear Zoro admit that kind of thing but he just did!

"Don't make me ask again Sanji, come on." Zoro groans, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly.

"Of course, if you really want me to... I will. I'll do whatever you need. For the whole day too, I mean if you need someone else running around checking on things for you for the day then I can do that." Sanji nods. Zoro's face breaks out into a picture of relief.

"That would be great. Come on, I'm gonna make you run through this until we can both play it asleep." Zoro says, changing the topic quickly and prodding Sanji into singing once more.

The two of them practice all evening, glad that Usopp is out with Kaya and can't risk hearing them. They both want this song to be a surprise.

And it's not that Sanji wants to impress Zoro or anything, after all just because he's hot doesn't mean that he feels some need to show off to him or anything. So the fact that he's practicing the song for the wedding at every possible opportunity where neither Zoro nor Usopp can hear him is neither here nor there.

After all, he's already realised that pursuing Zoro would be a silly idea as he doesn't even know if Zoro likes guys and he hardly wants to be another singer that Zoro's dated and bombed with. He'd really rather stay in the band than get in Zoro's pants. So it's not like he's hoping that if he's attractive enough or if he sings well enough that Zoro might make the decision and crack before he does.

As if he'd be so needy and spineless as to do that. The endless secret practicing and the additional care he's taking choosing outfits that compliment him are entirely incidental. Really.

Anyway, the next few days before the wedding fly by in a blur. Zoro will occasionally run up to him looking like he's about to have a heart attack, yell a name of a business and an address in Sanji's direction and he'll rush to his car and ferry Zoro to it. Once there Zoro proceeds to have a series of increasingly tense and irritable discussions with various salespeople and business owners about increasingly stupid things like cutlery or lighting. Sanji supposes that it's all important but Zoro is really getting wound up about it.

It's actually starting to get a little worrying in all honesty. The day before the wedding the venue had called Usopp up to inform him that the tent outside the venue where the guests could go to get drinks whilst photographs were being taken had blown down in a particularly windy storm. Despite the pleasant weather forecast for the actual day of the wedding the days leading up to it have been nothing but wet and windy and it doesn't appear to be doing Zoro's blood pressure any favours.

Thankfully Usopp's stag night had been and gone before Sanji had even joined the band, apparently Kaya had been worried that Usopp might get himself completely trashed and in some kind of trouble and had sensibly concluded that all that sort of thing should be over with long enough before the wedding that things could be fixed and "funny" sharpie tattoos could get washed off. Either way it was a good decision because Sanji is pretty sure that Zoro wouldn't be able to cope with a night out right about now, and especially combined with Zoro's apparent skill for getting punched in the face the moment he sets foot in a bar it's probably best that it's already been over and done with.

Sanji had set his alarm for what he considered to be early on the day of the wedding, figuring that all of the groomsmen and especially the groom could use a good solid breakfast to see them through the morning until the full wedding breakfast that would be after the ceremony and photographs.

When he heads into the kitchen in his pyjamas though he finds Usopp sitting there alone, nursing a cup of coffee and staring into it as if it might hold the secrets of the universe if he just looks hard enough. Sanji hesitates at the door, Usopp hasn't noticed him yet so he backs out of the room and heads upstairs to his floor. Instead of going into his own bedroom though he turns left and knocks softly on Zoro's door. He waits a few moments but doesn't get an answer, so he gently opens the door slowly. When he peeks in the room he sees that Zoro is sprawled diagonally across his bed in a tangled mess of sleepy limbs and bed covers.

"Zoro." Sanji calls softly, coming into the room. Zoro doesn't respond and instead just snores gently through his slightly open mouth.

Sanji comes a little closer and takes a few seconds to survey Zoro's naked face, free from whatever trickery Zoro uses to cover up his cuts and bruises. True to his original promise his first black eye is almost completely gone, some shallow yellow and green bruising is the only real hint that there was any injury there at all. Under both eyes however is a nasty green and purple colour, though this bruise just spreads out from the bridge of Zoro's nose on either side, tracing the edges of what Sanji supposes is his eye sockets. He guesses those would have been the bones that absorbed the impact of Zoro's surprise punch to the face. The gash on Zoro's nose that had looked so permanent and gruesome before is now healed together neatly and is just a red line. Zoro is apparently surprisingly good at providing his own medical attention.

"Zoro." He repeats, reaching out and shaking Zoro's shoulder.

The guitarist groans and blinks blearily at him.

"Whuh?" Zoro groans, rubbing at his eyes.

"Best man duties Zoro, Usopp looks like he's freaking out in the kitchen. Better get a move on." Sanji informs him.

"Shit." Zoro curses, rolling out of bed and landing nimbly on his feet. Zoro quickly makes his way to the bathroom and when he appears a minute or two later He's made up enough that you can't see the thin red cut on his nose or the new bruising from his most recent brawl. Sanji squints at him, ninety percent sure that it's got to be witchcraft and not make up.

Sanji follows Zoro as he makes his way out of his bedroom and quickly down the stairs to the ground floor. Zoro leads the way into the kitchen and sure enough Usopp is still sitting there unmoved since Sanji last saw him.

"Hey." Zoro says softly, touching Usopp's shoulder and pulling him out of his numb looking haze.

Sanji leaves them to it and starts on breakfast. He re-evaluates what he was planning on making, Usopp looks a little pale and interesting so he's probably not up for eating a whole lot of food right now. Something nutritious and filling yet easy to eat and perhaps a little plain. He knows just the thing.

Sanji sets about making his revised breakfast plan for everyone, although he's not cooking for his lovely ladies this morning. As Kaya's bridesmaids their duties are strictly reserved for helping the bride get ready this morning, as such they stayed with her last night and are probably having a delightful feminine breakfast this morning. He can picture it now, dainty china, elegant laughter and good table manners. They would be composed and refined, unlike Usopp who is sitting half in Zoro's lap, crying into his shoulder with tears and snot running down his face.

"What if she changes her mind? Why would she want to marry meeee?" Usopp cries into Zoro's shoulder. Sanji watches through the curtain of his hair as Zoro clenches his jaw and reassuringly pats his back, clearly trying not to lose his temper.

"She won't change her mind Usopp, you know that." Zoro reasons logically. Sanji isn't so sure that logic is going to work right now and as the others come in the room they too try to reassure Usopp with how they know that everything will be fine (or indeed "super") but it's no use. Usopp is too far gone in his self-doubt and panic to be reached by mere logic.

"It's too early, I wanna go back to beeeed." Luffy whines, resting his head on the table sleepily. He was clearly dragged out of bed by one of the others.

Sanji sprinkles some maple syrup and pecan nuts in Usopp's porridge, for short and long term energy. He goes for ice cream sprinkles with Chopper's, honey with Brook's, brown sugar in Franky's and Luffy's. With Luffy's he also relents and brings out some cold sausages left over from yesterday's breakfast (cleverly whipped out of the reach of Luffy's gaping maw and stored for just this occasion). With Zoro's he has a feeling that the guitarist will actually like salt in his porridge, it's more of a Scottish thing but Zoro's got more of a savoury tongue than a sweet tooth.

"I'm sleepy too." Chopper agrees with a tired whine.

"Hohoho! These little ones want to go back to bed and Usopp is having second thoughts, maybe we should call the whole thing off!" Brook jokes.

Sanji winces. He might not know Zoro better than his friends do, but he knows Zoro better than he knows the others and whilst he can tell that Brook is clearly trying to joke to lighten the mood and make the panicked groom laugh it's not the right move to go for with Zoro.

"NO!" Zoro yells, leaping to his feet.

"We've not spent six months frantically arranging this fucking thing only to drop it at the last moment! USOPP STOP CRYING! Kaya loves you more than anything and you are going up that aisle and saying your vows if I have to punch a hole through your spine and jam my hand into your head to operate you like a goddamn puppet!" He shouts, jabbing a finger into Usopp's face. The tears stop as if turned off by tap but Sanji suspects that it's more out of fear of Zoro than anything else.

"You two will quit your bitching, drink some caffeine and eat breakfast! You will stop saying stupid jokes or I will remove that so treasured afro from your head by the _roots_. Now everyone will stick with the plan and we will all have a magical time and it will be a beautiful day to remember so help me god!" Zoro screams, eyeballing all of the men at the table to dare to challenge him.

Not one of them do.

"On that note, breakfast. Eat all of it, and Luffy if I see you stealing I will leave you at Zoro's not-so-merciful hands. Got that?" He warns, putting the bowls down and seeing Luffy's food lust filled eyes.

"Sit, breathe, eat." He murmurs gently to Zoro, moving behind him and softly pressing on his shoulder to make him sit down as he deposits his breakfast in front of him. Soon breakfast is dished up to all of the silent males at the table and Sanji joins them.

"God Sanji, how can you make porridge good? I always hated porridge as a kid but… wow." Franky says, bravely breaking the silence.

"It's lovely." Chopper chirps meekly in agreement, flicking the now slightly more relaxed looking Zoro a look.

The kettle whistles and Sanji rises from the table and heads to the drinks cabinet. The others at the table all have drinks of their own, as he'd put down a pitcher of milk and a pitcher of juice when he first laid the table. But this is something special, just for Zoro. He puts down a mug and opens the cutlery drawer to remove a small mesh ball which hinges open, he also removes a small spoon. He sprinkles the slightest bit of sugar in the bottom and pops open the mesh ball. As the kettles cools a little he fills the small ball with little daisy like flowers from the container in the cupboard that holds Robin's extensive coffee selection. He snaps the ball shut and dangles it in the cup from its chain which he wraps around the handle of the mug. With that done he pours the not quite boiling water over it until the mug is almost full. He dunks the ball a few times and then rests knowing that it will infuse on its own.

"Drink this, no arguments." He orders Zoro, placing the mug before him and sitting back in his own chair.

"What… is that?" Zoro asks dubiously peering inside and plucking at the chain. His scowl is still present on his face and doesn't seem inclined to move.

"Arsenic, I thought I ought to put you out of our misery. Just fucking drink it, if I wanted your opinion or permission I'd have asked for it. So as I didn't, do what you're told." Sanji snaps back, staring Zoro down. He won't be moved out of this, Zoro can snarl and bark all he wants, that dog won't bite and Sanji knows it.

Zoro scowls at him but eventually takes a little sip.

"It's too hot, I can't taste a thing." Zoro bitches, fanning his tongue.

"Well maybe you ought to eat your porridge and wait then goldilocks." Sanji mocks, poking his tongue out. Usopp giggles for the first time that morning and Sanji is pleased to see that he looks more like himself now. Sanji also suspects that it's only because Zoro is pleased by Usopp's return to normal that all he gets is flipped off rather than verbally attacked.

Eventually the drink cools enough to drink it and when it does so Zoro puts up less of a fuss and just drinks it. Sanji hopes that the chamomile tea will soothe the guitarist's frayed nerves. Either way whether because his best friend is calmer now or because of the tea Zoro looks a little more relaxed.

"Alright, all of you get shaved and showered now. No exceptions!" Zoro declares, standing up.

"But… I don't shave!" Chopper points out meekly with big watery eyes as if contemplating the terror of having to learn to do so on such an important day.

"I… okay, you don't have to shave. But you'd better shower!" Zoro adds, apparently determined to be the boss.

"Yes! Of course!" Chopper chirps, leaping to his feet. As one the others all get up from the table with excited talk about the wedding.

"You too Sanji." Zoro warns, looking at him as Sanji starts collecting the bowls.

"I've got breakfast to clean up first." Sanji points out, gesturing to the bowls and other breakfast mess.

"Can't you just leave it, just for once?" Zoro groans, pinching the bridge of his nose in stress and then looking immediately like he regrets it as it's awfully close to his cut.

"Well, seeing as we can't both use the shower at the same time…" he reasons, very firmly ignoring his brain's helpful hint that actually they could and it could be rather fun!

"You shower first, and I'll wash up. If you like you can text me when you're done and I'll leave whatever's left and rush off to shower too. That sound like a fair compromise?" He offers, shooing Zoro out of the room.

"I guess… but you'd better come up right away!" Zoro says sternly.

"Of course oh mighty best man, I bow at your every whim!" he jeers sarcastically bowing in mock deference. Zoro takes the opportunity to slap him on the back of the head for his insolence, Sanji shoves him back in retaliation, making him laugh.

"And for god's sake don't use that cheap shit on your hair. For once in your life use something good. Take my shampoo and conditioner so you look a _little_ less like you're growing moss on your head!" He shouts as Zoro exits the room.

"Bite me cook!" Zoro yells and disappears.

Sanji gets to tidying. He's cleaned all of the bowls and glasses by the time Zoro's demanding text pings through to his phone. He's okay with leaving the porridge saucepan to soak off. He dries his hands on a drying towel and heads upstairs, phone in hand.

When he gets up to his floor Zoro is wearing a towel low on his waist and nothing else. After a second or two of yanking his brain out of the gutter he manages a response.

"What are you looking at me like that for?" He demands, hoping that if he gets the demand in first then Zoro won't.

"I'm not looking at you like anything, get showered!" Zoro snaps and shoves Sanji into his own room.

Sanji strips off as he gets into the bathroom and locks both doors, he showers quickly but thoroughly and shaves right afterwards when his skin is still wet. He takes time drying and brushing his hair nice and smooth and then shimmies into his custom made suit and yeah, he still looks damn fantastic in it.

When he emerges from the bedroom suited and booted Zoro's door is open and the guitarist is nowhere to be seen, however there's a certain amount of shouting from the floors below that suggest some kind of chaos is happening. Sanji goes down to investigate.

All of their suits appear to be different colours for each of them, the main grey colour is the same but the trim, the shirt, the pinstripes and the back silk panel to their waistcoats are all different. Brook's suit is grey and black, it should look all drab and funeral like but he looks pretty sharp in it actually. Similarly Franky's is the same light blue colour as his hair and that too suits him well.

Sanji catches Chopper wandering around holding his tie and looking worried. He stops the young teenager and bends down to fasten the tie neatly for him and straighten out his little waistcoat at the back where the strap is slightly twisted.

"Where's Luffy?" Sanji asks suspiciously, looking around at the others.

"Dunno." Franky shrugs and the others look equally blank.

Remembering that he's personally decided to be Zoro's right hand man for the day he heads down another floor to where he knows Luffy's room is. He knocks on the slightly ajar door and lets himself in to find Luffy sprawled across the bed with a foot in the air trying to do up his shoelaces.

"Having a little trouble there boss?" Sanji grins at him.

"Shoelaces are dumb. Do you think that Zoro would notice if I just wore my sandals?" Luffy asks, looking at Sanji hopefully.

"Not only would he notice but I'm pretty sure that he'd make you eat them if he caught you." Sanji answers with a laugh.

"Man, I know Usopp is Zoro's best friend and all but he's taking this all way too seriously." Luffy pouts, giving up on the laces and flopping completely on the bed.

"I think he feels responsible if everything doesn't go perfectly." He shrugs, walking over to Luffy and sitting by his feet. He picks up Luffy's foot and starts lacing up his shoes for him, somehow their drummer has managed to make a real mess and Sanji wonders if Luffy can actually do laces up at all or if it's just these ones that have foxed him. From the fact that he's not actually seen Luffy in proper shoes that didn't have Velcro on them he thinks that perhaps Luffy can't. That's interesting if nothing else.

"Yeah, but it's supposed to be a party! It's meant to be a celebration, it's supposed to be _fun_!" Luffy argues, leaning up on his elbows and watching.

"Weddings are great fun, but I think organising them is a little stressful. It's a big responsibility if people don't have fun, and there's all that legal stuff too. There." Sanji answers, finishing the final lace on Luffy's other shoe.

"I guess. Thanks." Luffy adds with a smile, sitting up and doing his tie up easily.

"You can do your tie up but not your shoes?" Sanji laughs at the utter ridiculousness of it.

"Of course, I'm not an idiot!" Luffy chuckles and straightens it around his throat.

He hops off of the bed with an energetic bounce and he too looks pretty cool in his suit. His is all decked out in red, except his tie and his pinstripes are black.

Sanji looks around Luffy's room, the place is a chaotic mess but it's kind of homely too. It's full of random nick-knacks that Luffy seems to have just picked up throughout his life, there's also drumsticks of all kinds all over the place.

Luffy looks at himself in the mirror and after some consideration and a reluctant sigh Luffy takes his hat off and combs through his hair with a brush that he scavenges off of the floor. Luffy doesn't look too happy to be leaving his hat here but he's doing it anyway.

"I've never been in your room before." He notes, looking around a little more.

"You should! Though I'm not in here much, I prefer to go find people to hang out with. But you're usually in the kitchen or the TV room if you want to talk to people. Or off with Zoro." Luffy notes with a small smile on his mouth that heats Sanji's cheeks for no reason that Sanji can put his finger on.

"We should get going." He says quickly instead, getting up off of Luffy's bed and brushing entirely imaginary dust off of his suit just so that he has an excuse not to make eye contact with Luffy.

"You like Zoro." Luffy states simply. Sanji jerks and looks up at Luffy who is watching him intensely, with his hands stuffed casually in his back pockets.

"Hah, no, I tolerate Zoro's many, many flaws. He's okay I guess, but he's at his best with his trap shut and playing his guitar." Sanji lies with a laugh.

"Lying is Usopp's thing Sanji, not yours. You like him. It's cool, I think you're good for him. Better than Baby was." The drummer smiles at him and Sanji's face is nearing the red colour of Luffy's shirt.

"Well, I don't intend on stealing all of your songs and leaving you guys in the lurch, or slapping Zoro on stage, so there's that." Sanji answers weakly.

"Not what I meant. You coming or what?" their band leader grins at him from the door and Sanji reminds himself that despite the way he acts, the guy is not an idiot.

"S… sure." He responds weakly and follows.

"Luffy are- oh." Zoro's voice comes from the hall.

"Sanji helped me get ready!" Luffy informs him happily and Sanji emerges to find a slightly stunned looking Zoro in the hallway eyeing the rather presentable looking Luffy.

"You're all done." Zoro remarks in some surprise.

"You're welcome." Sanji snorts.

"Thanks…" Zoro says a little distantly, as if he still can't quite grasp the idea that he's not going to have to force Luffy into his suit.

Behind Zoro is Usopp. His hair is loosely tied back but still flowing pretty freely, it looks nice in the way that Usopp's messy curls always do. His suit is a gorgeous gold colour that somehow really works for him. It should look stupid and ostentatious but it doesn't, somehow it makes him look regal somehow. Sanji is starting to suspect that Inazuma must be some kind of tailoring wizard.

"Chopper, I've got to go-" Zoro suddenly says, heading for the stairs.

"I've already sorted his tie out too, he's all set from what I can tell." Sanji chips in.

"Oh. Thanks." Zoro says, looking at Sanji strangely.

"Why are you giving me that look? Is my suit all weird, has my hair gone funny?" Sanji suddenly frets, twisting to look himself over and running his hands over his body to check whether anything is out of place. He quickly combs through his hair with his hands but that too seems fine. When he focuses his attention back on the considerably calmer looking Zoro the other man's strange expression is gone, incidentally so are Usopp and Luffy. Sanji didn't notice them leave… somehow.

"Rings... phone… keys… wallet… uh…" Zoro mutters, heading to the stairs with Sanji in tow as he pats himself down.

"Your guitar left with Robin last night, and Chopper sent his best mic off with her remember? She's in on the plan and Usopp will be none the wiser, quit fussing." He orders, elbowing the best man.

"You're the one fussing over me." Zoro accuses weakly.

"You're welcome asshole." Sanji snorts, as the two of them come into the main lobby of their home.

"We've still got all of those balloons to blow up and the signs to order up for the route." Zoro recites as they go down the stairs. Sanji isn't sure if Zoro is just reminding himself of all of the jobs that they have left or whether he's actually reminding Sanji. He'd guess that since Zoro doesn't look to him for a reply that it's the first one.

They go into their main living area downstairs where they have all of the nice plush sofas and the sizeable TV. To Sanji's surprise, the others are already there blowing up the balloons. He leaps over the back of the sofa to join them and snags a couple of deflated ones. For each set of three that they blow up Brook ties them together with his thin and nimble fingers. Sanji finds it easier than the others to blow up the balloons, being able to get them to a decent size in just a puff or two, but then, unlike the others his skill does sort of rely on his lungs.

In no time at all they have all of the balloons inflated and the laminated signs organised not, thankfully, that it looks like it's going to rain today.

"That went quicker than I thought." Zoro notes, looking around their band mates.

"Your faith in our incompetence is always so flattering Zoro." Franky sniggers.

"Maaaybe I shouldn't drive." Usopp says thoughtfully as they all make their way out to the garage with armfuls each of squeaky balloons. He holds his hands up and Sanji can see that he's shaking like a leaf.

"Ya think?" Zoro sighs, taking the key off of Usopp and chucking it in Franky's direction. They all pile into the van together, careful of their fancy suits. The engine starts and Franky drives them there. Sanji looks around the others and thinks that this is all going rather well.

They make their way to the main road that's on the way to the venue and Sanji is the first to hop out with Zoro handing him a sign. It reads "Usopp & Kaya, straight ahead!" With two zip ties he secures the sign and the balloons to the street lamp and hops back into the back of the van and settles next to Zoro's side. Zoro hands him another sign set and they both stare silently out of the window until Sanji has to hop out again with the next direction sign.

This happens before each turning and occasionally along a long road to reassure incoming guests that they are headed in the right direction. Because of all of their stops the journey to the venue takes a little longer than it usually would but they get there soon enough.

Set in the middle of some idyllic woodland there is a small vineyard and brewery, attached to it is a centuries old barn which has been renovated for wonderful events such as this. The van pulls up into the gravel courtyard opposite and they all get out with a few of the boxes that had been stored in the back of the van with them.

Walking up the cobblestoned driveway and courtyard allows Sanji to really take in the view of the barn itself. Big wooden oak beams, stained with age and many loving coats of varnish form the main support pillars of the building whilst the pale stone from the local area comprises the walls. One large doorway of the barn is now a wide glass arch, letting plenty of sunlight into the inside of the barn. Set in the middle of the glass arch are two heavy black wooden doors with wrought iron decorations to them. On either side of the doorways are pretty little trimmed hedges in pots with fairy lights in them. Sanji knows that they look magical at night because he and Zoro were up here last night so that Zoro could check that everything was working in a fit of last minute paranoia.

To Sanji's relief, and obviously Zoro's as well from the sigh that he heaves, the white marquee tent in the lawn outside the barn is back up again, repaired from the storm.

"Right, you lot. Candles on tables, in there, move. Sanji, you're with me." Zoro orders, shoving the box of tea light candles and candle holders into Franky's hands. From it though he also removes a big piece of bunting.

Sanji hasn't seen this yet, he knows that Nami, Robin and Kaya had been making this decoration as some kind of girly bonding activity. It's actually really pretty. There are triangles of fabric sewn into a red ribbon, the patterns range from cream to red including a red and white chequered one which is quite pretty. Every few flags there is a small little bell at the tip. Sanji supposes that they're meant to waft gently and delicately in the breeze with a soft jingle, but right now they're rattling discordantly in Zoro's hands.

Zoro hands him one end and they split up with Zoro attaching the start of the reel to one of the supporting pillars of the tent whilst Sanji balances on the back of a chair and does the same with the next pillar. Together they weave the bunting across the whole structure, throwing it back and forth as they move from place to place. As they work the others are busy setting up candles and scattering table decorations on the tables below. By the time that they're all done the place looks gorgeous and tasteful, Sanji's pretty damn impressed actually. Zoro has no time to admire his work though as he's already off chasing down servers about something to do with the drinks. Sanji leaves him to it and returns some empty boxes to the car.

The first hour or two there is taken up with these little jobs which really do put the final touches on the already beautiful place. They're all running back and forth at Zoro's every order and despite all of the stress that Zoro has clearly gone through it's evidently working. Even Usopp seems to appreciate being kept busy enough that he has no time to panic.

When the officiant arrives though Usopp starts looking incredibly nervous. Zoro notices this and goes off inside with the two of them to keep an eye on the twitchy groom.

Guests have been arriving non-stop for the last half an hour. Seeing as neither Kaya or Usopp have any biological family the entire guest list is friends, the two of them have a fair number of friends it seems!

Thankfully Usopp is inside when Kaya's car pulls up with the girls inside of it. The vehicle is a beautiful cream with white wedding bows all over it. Cameras flash as if a movie starlet was arriving at a premier, and when Kaya gets out Sanji isn't sure that he's wrong. Her gorgeous blonde hair is curled and a silver ornate band rests in her hair, giving her every air of a real princess. Her flowing white lace and silk dress does nothing to dispel that feel, only to enhance it. Robin and Nami of course look radiant but, and as should be the case, both of them are eclipsed by Kaya's timeless elegance and beauty as the bride.

Sanji remembers Zoro's instructions and along with Robin and Nami, shepherds her into the tent and lets the white fabric doors close behind them. That way even if Usopp was to come outside he is in no danger of seeing his bride before the wedding.

"You look… stunning, all of you. Kaya you look absolutely radiant and- uh… oh…" Sanji tails off as he sees a certain figure strut up the cobbled driveway.

"What is it Sanji?" Kaya asks in concern, looking over her pale shoulder at him.

"Nothing! Just something I've got to take care of for Zoro, there's only so much that man can do at once you know!" He lies with a smile and shuts the tent doors.

He dashes towards the driveway.

Walking up it carefully in obscenely high heels is Baby. She's wearing an absolutely skin tight black lace and silk dress that would be eerily similar to the design of Kaya's only far shorter and tighter. Sanji would have realised that and been disturbed by it if he wasn't freaking out so much.

"What are you doing here?" He gasps, coming to a halt in front of her.

"One of my old friends is getting married today, I thought I should be here." She answers, flipping her hair over her shoulder and gazing at him challengingly.

"Did you get an invitation?" Sanji asks carefully, knowing full well that the answer is no.

"It must have been lost." She says flippantly.

She chews her lip and lowers her gaze, suddenly she appears every bit the sweet girl that Sanji met in the coffee shop. It throws him.

"Look Sanji, I'm not here to cause trouble. I'll hide in the back if I have to. I just liked Usopp and Kaya a lot and I wanted to see them get married. When all that mess with Zoro kicked off I lost all of my friends, I told you already, I'm lonely. I just want to see their happy day. You can understand that, can't you?" She pleads, looking up at him with her big brown eyes.

"I… I do. But it's their day and if they didn't invite you then I can't let you in. I'm really sorry but I just can't." Sanji answers sadly.

"I should have figured. Everyone hates me, even you. You used to like me a little but you spent enough time around them and now you're not even answering my phone calls or texts anymore." She pouts sadly. Sanji winces, she has been texting him the last few days but as per Zoro's request he's not responded in any way.

"You did show up at our gig just to throw Zoro off." Sanji reasons, still remembering that blank frightened look on Zoro's face and feeling his heart clench because of it. He needs to get rid of her before Zoro comes out and sees her, he can't handle seeing her today, not with how stressed he already is.

"I showed up because you invited me, remember?" Baby insists, jutting her hip challengingly.

"And if I'd known who you were, I wouldn't have. You need to go, please." He insists as gently as he can.

"So who are you protecting from being faced with me, Kaya, Usopp or Zoro? Are you being a good little muse to him then?" she presses, Sanji flinches at that and it makes her smirk, he suspects that he's just inadvertently answered her question.

"Look, I'm sorry that I took your position as singer and… well…" he flusters.

"You didn't take her position as muse Sanji, she never had it. Zoro would write songs for her but he could never write with her. She envied Usopp because he wrote with Zoro sometimes. She would have killed to get from Zoro what you can with ease, she never had that harmony. She was always bad for him, personally _and_ creatively." Robin's voice says from behind him, her tone cold and menacing. Baby's eyes widen and she takes a couple of unstable steps backwards. She's clearly unnerved by Robin and when Sanji looks across to see the dangerous look on her face he can sort of see why.

"I should have known you would be here." Baby hisses with a glare at Robin.

"Well I am Usopp's friend, unlike you. But don't worry about it, you were never very bright." Robin retorts icily.

"Like I said to Sanji here, I'm not here to cause trouble. I just want to see-" She begins irritably.

"You're not going to see anyone, now get out of here before I haul you out by your hair." Robin snarls, her fists balling at her sides.

"Ah! Ladies! Surely that's not necessary! We're all reasonable here. I'm sure this was just a… a misunderstanding. I'll walk you back to your car if you like Baby, no harm done, no need for anyone to hurt anyone else. Right?" He pleads, leaping between the two and looking hopefully at the scowling ladies.

"I don't care how you get rid of her, run her over with the van and dump her body in the woods if you have to, but get her gone." Robin orders and turns on her heel and leaves to go back to the tent with Kaya in.

"You see what I mean? According to them I'm the devil, I don't even get a chance to reason with any of them, they've hated me ever since I left the band. They used to be my friends." Baby says sadly and Sanji feels a pang of sympathy for her. Even though she hurt Zoro so badly she was younger when it happened, and isn't everyone allowed to make mistakes?

"I'm sorry, come on. Let me walk you back to your car." He offers, holding out his elbow for her.

Baby clutches at his arm silently and unsteadily walks with him back in the direction of her car. It's a really pretty black and red convertible Volkswagen beetle, it's really sweet and Sanji has to say that it suits her.

"This is yours? It's really nice!" Sanji exclaims, looking at the car.

"Thanks." She says softly, leaning against the door of the car whilst she fishes in her purse for her keys.

"Sanji. I'm sorry that I kept the truth from you about who I was before, and that I was so catty on the phone to you. I just knew that you'd go from being someone so nice to someone who hates me as soon as you knew who I was. And what can I say? Being reviled gets a little old. I just wanted someone to like me, even if only for a little bit." She apologises with a sniffle.

"Oh shit, my mascara is going to run." She gasps, holding back a little sob as she tilts her face skywards to stop the tears from running.

Sanji pulls a tissue out from an inside pocket and offers it to her which she gratefully takes and dabs at her eyes.

"I don't think that you're evil. I just think that maybe you're someone who made a few bad decisions when they were younger, that you fell out with someone you cared for and things just went badly. I don't hate you, I just can't let you in. I'm really sorry, I am." He apologises sincerely, he does hate to see a lady cry like this.

She sniffs and looks up at him with her big watery brown eyes, her bottom lip trembles a little and she leans in and hugs Sanji.

"Thank you, that means a lot." She whimpers into his shoulder. He runs and hand down her back soothingly.

"It's okay." He murmurs and strokes her hair. She is awfully pretty, despite everything that he knows he still can't deny that, though he's not as attracted to her as he was at their first meeting. Perhaps knowing what she did to break Zoro's heart has turned him off of her somewhat. And, if he's honest with himself, he's more attracted to Zoro himself than to his ex-girlfriend.

"Sanji, can I ask you a favour? Could… could you send me a photo of Zoro? I know he'll look amazing in his suit and I just… I admit that I really wanted to see him today." She asks hopefully.

Sanji stares at her for a second and considers that she may have broken her own heart when she split up with Zoro too, he supposes that from her perspective she was trying to leave a band she was unhappy with and expected her boyfriend to support her, only for him to choose his friends over her. She lashed out in pain and everything ended so suddenly. It's hardly an ending with a lot of closure and it's not hard to imagine that she still has feelings for Zoro as much as he does for her. Perhaps she didn't show up at the show just to hurt Zoro or to give him stage fright, perhaps she just showed up because she's as messed up about him as he is over her.

"I can put one on twitter if you like, it's no problem." He answers softly.

"That would be great! Thank you so much Sanji you're really kind, I'm glad you don't hate me too." Baby smiles at him.

"Anyway, I'd better get going before Nami hears I'm here and comes out and murders me, she never liked me even when I was in the band." She laughs a little hollowly and fishes her keys from her bag. She walks elegantly around to the driver's side of her car, unlocks it and slides in.

"Thank you Sanji." She smiles at him through the rolled down window and pulls off.

Sanji watches her drive off into the distance and considers for a moment that perhaps she isn't all bad. He really hopes that Zoro didn't see her though. He sprints off back in the direction of the barn and spots Zoro emerging from the doors, Sanji is relieved, he got Baby away in time.

"Hey! So the girls are all in there, does the officiant have to see Kaya now?" Sanji chirps cheerfully at him.

"Yeah actually, I'll send her that way. Uh… where were you?" Zoro questions, glancing across at Sanji with a curious look.

"Just… taking care of something. I'm all yours now though, what do you need me to do?" he offers.

"Could you help Chopper set up your mic without Usopp realising what you're doing?" Zoro asks, gesturing inside the barn.

Sanji nods in agreement and heads indoors. The inside of the barn has more of the beautiful wood from the beams with solid wooden flooring and antique looking wooden tables with white tablecloths covering them. Earlier the florists came in and placed the table decorations down, beautiful clear fish bowls with red gerberas floating in them and thin green grasses arcing around the shape of the bowls. The chairs and their decorations that Zoro had argued with the decorators over are all perfect, lined up in neat rows ready for the ceremony to take place in less than half an hour.

Usopp is pacing around at the head of the chairs, near the altar. He's reading through his written down vows over and over again. Not that he really has to remember, the officiant will read them out and Usopp will just have to repeat his parts when required. Even so the guy is so adorably worried about getting it wrong Sanji can't help but find it endearing. With that being the case Sanji could probably prance right in front of him with his microphone, singing their song without Usopp noticing in the slightest.

Still, he probably shouldn't do that.

The back wall behind the altar is criss-crossed with fairy lights which make the white mesh fabric behind them glow sweetly. Right now they're set to white but later Zoro is going to get them to turn red for when the party kicks in later in the evening. Sanji slides behind the curtain and the lights and heads up the hidden staircase which leads upstairs to the audio area.

Up here all of the audio equipment is set up and Chopper is sat on the floor elbow deep in wires and cables, his short, out of control brown hair curling around his oversized headphones. He's plugged into his fancy mac laptop which has all of the music set up for the ceremony and for later too.

"Hey, Zoro sent me up here to set up my mic with you for later." Sanji says softly, kneeling down next to their resident child prodigy.

"Yeah, he still won't tell me what that's about, he's only told me to flick the microphone and guitar receiver on when he starts his speech. He won't let me into his plan." Chopper pouts up at Sanji, clearly hoping that his cute little face will persuade Sanji to let the cat out of the bag. It's a good plan but it won't work.

"Sorry Chopper. So, what help do you need?" He asks.

"None actually, since I brought my own laptop I was just able to port the mic settings over." Chopper answers simply and returns his attention to his laptop and his fine crafting of the playlist for later.

"Well, okay then. I guess I'll go see if I'm needed elsewhere. Later Chopper." Sanji shrugs and makes his way back down the stairs. Usopp is still fretting and Sanji decides that it's probably best to just leave him to it and goes off to find Zoro.

He finds the marimo secluded off by himself, peering through a window and watching guests arrive. The other groomsmen are welcoming the guests, the job which Zoro had assigned them to do at this point. Zoro himself looks far away and stressed out, so much so that Sanji almost wonders if he hadn't got Baby out in time and Zoro is freaking out about that.

"Hey." He says softly, brushing his shoulder up against Zoro's to get his attention.

"Hey." Zoro replies, his voice tight and tense.

Sanji considers the best way to make Zoro relax. Coming right out and trying to comfort the other man will probably go badly, stupid Zoro would probably just get really snarky and defensive and then even more highly strung. A new tactic is in order then.

"So, I'm hoping for some inside information. I'm considering starting a pool with the others to work out what bit of today you're going to screw up from being so nervous and I'm thinking that it's gonna be the rings that you'll lose or drop or something. But if you've got any idea about what you're going to mess up I'd appreciate the tip." Sanji smirks at the other man.

Zoro blinks at him in shock before his face flashes anger.

"You… you asshole! I'm not gonna screw anything up! And I'm not nervous!" Zoro snarls at him.

"That's good to hear, cause you were looking pretty shaky just then but now you're back to your normal self. Well, at least as much as a green haired weirdo like you can look." He sniggers, reaching forward and ruffling Zoro's aforementioned bizarre hair. He's actually pleased to feel that the other man's hair feels unusually smooth and soft, it's also got more of a shine to it than usual. Sanji supposes that Zoro really did borrow his hair stuff this morning, it… it looks good on him.

"Don't think I don't see your shallow plan to distract me." Zoro mutters, glancing away from him.

"Hey, you don't use a sledgehammer to crack a nut. I don't need a huge master plan to distract such a tiny mind." Sanji boasts and laughs as Zoro shoves him irritably to the side. He'd be blind to miss the small smirk lingering on Zoro's lips. That makes Sanji's heart flutter in a way that holding Baby close to him earlier just didn't.

"Ass." Zoro mumbles and heaves a big sigh.

"Better go let these bastards in then, the officiant looks ready to kick things off." Zoro notes as he spies the officiant walking out of the girl's tent and towards the main building.

"Good, cause Usopp looks like he might have a breakdown if he's kept waiting too much longer." Sanji notes, flicking his gaze across to the silently panicking keyboard player.

"He'll be fine. He's braver than he thinks. Show people to their seats for me?" Zoro asks him.

"You got it, like I said: I'm yours for the day. Anything I can do to help master." He laughs, giving an exaggerated bow and exiting the barn.

He heads out into the cobbled courtyard and along with his fellow bandmates he starts ushering Usopp and Kaya's friends, colleagues and such into the barn. Soon enough they're all settled into their seats with no one left standing and Sanji settles himself at the front of the room in his own chair with the other groomsmen at his side. Sanji finds himself struck with a moment of disorientation. Barely more than a month ago he had only ever dreamed of being in a band and didn't even know these people. Now he's helping to write songs, singing to packed out shows, he has a whole bunch of great new friends and he's at the wedding of one of those new friends and as a groomsman no less!

He looks up at Zoro standing so strong and sure by Usopp's side at the altar, waiting for Kaya to come walking in. He looks so perfect like this and he's once again overwhelmed by just how suddenly his feelings for this proud and talented man have come on. He should really be more wary of starting to get a crush like this on Zoro, but he's sure that he can ignore it, not that he really has a choice.

Suddenly Canon in D Major starts playing, Sanji knows well enough that it's the music that's supposed to appear as the bride enters. The room's occupants all rise to their feet and turn to get a look of the frankly stunning Kaya. She looks gorgeous with her arm threaded through the elbow of the man who Sanji has been informed was her guardian as a child.

Sanji pulls his eyes from Kaya to look up at Usopp. The keyboardist is staring at her with wide awestruck eyes and Sanji can see right then and there that all of his previous fear has evaporated. He can tell that Usopp has no idea what Kaya sees in him but that he wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the world but here getting married to her. There's so much overwhelming love for her that Sanji suddenly feels exactly what Zoro was getting at with his song and he's even more convinced that it's the perfect summation of what Usopp feels for her.

He smiles as the officiant runs through a whole speech about the true meaning of marriage, about having the back of the person that you've committed to, about how you put them ahead of all others. She talks about the commitment that marriage is and that it should not be entered into lightly. Despite all his previous nerves Usopp doesn't look at all scared, he looks calm and content. The officiant begins on the vows, first verifying Kaya and Usopp's legal names and whether they are legally free to marry each other and though Sanji doubts that either of them has a secret husband or wife secreted around he supposes that they have to ask these sorts of things.

"Kaya, I promise to protect and care for you as you protect and care for me. I promise to put you ahead of all others and to be only yours." Usopp repeats calmly and smoothly from what the officiant reads out. Sanji can't help but stare, Usopp's hands are calm and steady as they hold Kaya's slightly trembling ones. Sanji finds it hard to believe that this guy that he knows who gets spooked by his own shadow and was all but climbing the walls in fear this morning is so completely calm.

"I promise to love you, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health." Usopp repeats and quirks a small smile at Kaya, making her giggle softly. Zoro has told him already about how Usopp has already been with Kaya through a rather strong sickness, all of these things he's already done. Sanji realises that Usopp is calm because really, this is just a practicality, he's already committed to all of these things with her. The only difference is that he's doing it legally now and in front of an audience.

"I will celebrate your strengths and accept your flaws, knowing that you will be strong where I am weak so that I can be strong where you need me to be. From now onwards we face the world together." Usopp nods.

"Till death do us part." The officiant prompts and Usopp repeats his line dutifully.

Zoro is already ready with Kaya's ring before the officiant even begins to prompt him. Usopp takes the perfect gold band from his best man and, on the officiant's cue, slides it onto Kaya's ring finger. Sanji is close enough to hear the little delighted gasp as he does so.

The ceremony is now repeated with Kaya running through the same lines, her expression is wide and beaming and she's all but bouncing on her toes with barely restrained happiness. When it's her turn Zoro passes her Usopp's ring and she slides the matching gold band onto Usopp's finger.

Sanji sees Zoro visibly relax as his opportunity to lose or drop the rings and mess up that part of his job is completely passed.

"Does any person here present know of any reason why this frankly sickeningly sweet couple cannot be wedded here today?" The officiant smiles teasingly, looking around the room. Kaya and Usopp both giggle but Sanji finds himself tense, quickly glancing behind him to check that Baby hasn't gone against her word and returned just to ruin this moment. Out of the corner of his eye he sees that Robin is similarly tense. However the moment passes uneventfully. Sanji breathes a sigh of quiet relief.

"In that case, I now declare you man and wife. You may now kiss the- oh!" The officiant exclaims as Kaya launches herself forwards into Usopp's arms, her arms wrapping around Usopp's neck as she kisses him with an excited little squeak. He can hear Usopp laugh in his chest as he spins his new bride around once before placing her carefully back on the floor where she lets him go with an embarrassed giggle.

The whole room leaps to their feet, whooping and cheering, some people crying and almost everyone trying to take pictures. Sanji is definitely not tearing up. He is not crying. He has fucking allergies dammit. Honest.

Shit, even Usopp wouldn't tell a lie that bad.

Zoro flicks him and the other groomsmen a look and they all leap into action, herding the happy couple and all of the guests outside for photographs. The next half hour is spent dispersing and fetching various friend groups, groomsmen, bridesmaids, family friends and so on in and out of shots like they're at some goddamn organised sheepdog trials. In fairness as Sanji darts around three small kids with stupid looking hair as he tries to herd them into a shot with Kaya and her white fluffy haired family friend who gave her away, and has more than a passing resemblance to a sheep himself, he's not sure that the description isn't apt.

By the time everyone has to be in shot and rose petal confetti is thrown and champagne given to everyone as the final group photo is taken Sanji is totally ready to neck his glass of fizz.

After that the groomsmen, the groom, the bride and bridesmaids are all taken off into the idyllic woodlands nearby. There's an old cart track that runs through the woodlands with gorgeous old trees growing on either side, dappled leaf-tinted sunlight filters down and gives the whole place a kind of fairytale feel to it.

Kaya and her bridesmaids are off to walk down there first on the photographer's instructions as a way of getting some pretty nature shots in there and a show of how the lovely ladies interact with each other on film.

"Hey, thanks." Zoro murmurs to him, as Sanji pulls his eyes away from the ladies to look at the best man.

"You're welcome." Sanji answers, slightly puzzled.

"I mean it, you've been helping me keep that lot in line as much as you have the guests. You've been running me around like crazy in your car the last three days and with the speech and everything… You really didn't have to. So thanks." Zoro says honestly as Luffy scrambles up a tree behind them and Franky tries to climb up it to get him down.

"Don't thank me yet, the day's not over after all." Sanji reminds him, flicking a concerned glance as Franky pulls Luffy down by the scruff of the neck.

"You don't get a choice, asshole. I'm thanking you now." Zoro scowls, snagging him closer by his waistcoat pocket.

Sanji looks at him then, really looks at him. He realises that Zoro is trying incredibly hard to actually express his gratitude and he realises that this perhaps is not something that comes easily to the guitarist and he should really be paying more attention. Zoro's eyes are slightly downcast, not quite making eye contact with Sanji and his cheeks are dusted with a pale blush.

"You're welcome, idiot. And your tie is crooked, come here." Sanji mutters, his own face reddening a little. He pulls the incredibly attractive best man closer by the tie and sets to straightening it, Zoro's hand still lingering in Sanji's jacket pocket.

"You'd better be careful you know, if you keep being this nice to me I might actually get the impression that you like me." He teases softly, smoothing Zoro's tie over and tucking the smaller tail of it into the label on the back.

"I do like you." Zoro answers him quietly, his eyes suddenly locking with Sanji's and shooting sparks through Sanji's entire system. Is Zoro pulling him closer or is he just stepping closer of his own free will?

"Zoro…" Sanji breathes, his heart catching in his throat. God, he's so close, he could just lean forward, close the distance between them and-

The sound of a camera shutter clicking springs them apart like magnets and the two of them stare at the second photographer who is grinning right at them, her camera pointed at the two of them.

"Oh please, don't mind me, that was a good photo. Oops, gotta go!" She chirps, dashing past them and back after her colleague photographing the bridesmaids.

"LUFFY STOP CLIMBING THE TREES!" Zoro snaps, moving past Sanji.

"Brook, come back here!" Sanji yelps, seeing Brook starting to wander off into the woodlands. The two of them separate as if that… moment had never happened. Sanji can't help his mind spinning about just what that photo is going to look like though and what Zoro might say when he sees it. He forces his face to stop blushing already and retrieves Brook.

Kaya, Robin and Nami return from up the woodland path and smiles and laughter and then it's the turn of the guys. All of them head off down the path. It feels rather silly just wandering down whilst the photographers snap pictures of them walking away. He supposes that it looks cool from the photographer's point of view but it just feels kinda dumb walking down a path only to turn around and walk back. Sanji loiters at the edge of the group, deliberately staying away from Zoro after their earlier… moment. Or maybe it's all in Sanji's head, who knows.

By the time that the photos are done the wedding breakfast is starting to be laid out and the groomsmen all have to split up to show people to their seats and get everyone settled. Whilst they were out the staff at the venue had moved the chairs out of their aisle formation and placed them around round antique wooden tables with white thick cotton table cloths on them. The cutlery and table decorations that Zoro had been having to run around and see people about so regularly lately were all perfect and as it should be. It doesn't take too long before the venue's staff start bringing drinks and dishes out to all of the sat down guests.

Sanji is seated at Zoro's side on the long top table, a place that he would feel uncomfortable having if he didn't know precisely why he was at Zoro's side. He feels for the microphone hidden underneath the table near his knee, Chopper knows enough to have put it there but he doesn't know exactly why. Zoro had ordered one of the venue staff to put his precious white guitar under the table too. Sanji reaches out and feels the wooden fretboard of Zoro's precious guitar, he runs his fingers down the strings, his nails scraping lightly over them.

He pulls his hand back up under the table and forces down the flutter of nerves in his belly as his starter is placed in front of him. It's a nice dish, asparagus and poached egg. Even so he can't quite focus on it as he's really worried about whether or not the song will go down well or whether people will just stare at them and wonder what the hell they're doing. He's wondering if Zoro's kind of tricked him here, the man was supposed to be doing a speech and now he's singing in his place whilst Zoro just has to play his guitar.

The main course arrives, chilli chicken with dauphinoise potatoes and green vegetables. Dessert quickly follows though Sanji doesn't have much appetite for it as it means that it's quickly counting down the time to when he has to sing. He still eats it of course because it would be simply wasteful not to and he was always brought up better than to leave food if he can eat it.

Eventually everyone has finished their desserts and the staff are bringing around glasses of champagne for the toasts and speeches.

"Here goes nothing." Zoro mutters to Sanji. Sanji surreptitiously grabs the microphone from under the table as Zoro stands up. The guitarist hushes the guests who all turn to him expectantly.

"So… this is the part where I'm supposed to do my best man speech." Zoro starts a little awkwardly.

"I tried for the longest time to come up with something, some kind of long speech or story about how my best friend found the girl of his dreams but I couldn't come up with anything. Which is pretty embarrassing for someone who writes for a living." Zoro smiles and the guests laugh lightly.

"Sanji tried to help me out and he asked me to tell him what I would write if I was trying to do a song for them, just to throw ideas around. And, well… I'm sure all of you here know about Usopp's tendency for… stretching the truth…" Zoro grins, that gets quite a few knowing laughs and grins from the people around the room.

"Oh god, where is this going?" Usopp moans at Zoro's side, making Sanji laugh.

"Come on, he's your best man, he has to tease you!" Kaya giggles to Usopp. Sanji grins at them and remembers just why he's doing this, because Zoro loves his best friend and he's happy for the love his friends have.

"The thing is with all of Usopp's stories and exaggerations… he would actually live up to his word for Kaya, and she's the only person in the world that he'd do that for. That's how I know that he loves her." Zoro says softly, drawing a chorus of 'aww's from the guests.

Sanji looks up at Zoro in his gorgeous green shirt and waistcoat and feels his own heart flutter. His feelings for Zoro, and he's having a real hard time denying that there are real feelings there and not just lust. Those feelings don't compare to what Usopp and Kaya have, but they're still strong and he's happy to do what Zoro needs him to if it makes him happy.

Suddenly, he's not so nervous anymore.

"So… we wrote a song instead of a speech, so… I hope you two like it." Zoro says hesitantly and reaches below the table as Sanji pulls Zoro's precious guitar closer to him.

Zoro slides the strap over his shoulder and starts to play as Sanji switches his mic on. He lets his eyes flutter shut and remembers his friends sweet vows, he remembers just how much Zoro wanted this to go perfectly and reminds himself of how determined he is to not let Zoro down.

The tune is beautifully acoustic and maybe Sanji is imagining it but it feels like he can tell that this guitar is Zoro's favourite. He can't help but tap his foot along to the music and it actually lends a nice beat to it so he keeps it going. His part to sing comes up and he takes a deep breath and begins, keeping his voice clear and almost conversational.

"_My ancestors planted some sequoias by a road _

_I've driven down that road since I was born _

_Oh, never have you ever seen so many perfect evergreens _

_But I would chop them all down just for you _

_I have walked a million miles in a hundred pairs of shoes _

_In search of some universal truth _

_Well a deity just came to me and handed me a scroll to read _

_And I will gladly pass it on to you."_

Sanji glances to Kaya with a smile and she seems to get that he's singing this as Usopp, so to speak. To Sanji's relief the audience don't look confused or shocked at their sudden burst into song, in fact they all look interested and delighted, it's going well after all!

"_Anything for you _

_All of this is true _

_But the best story that I could ever tell _

_Is the one where I am growing old with you." _

Zoro is starting to join in with him now, not singing words but harmonising a tune. It wasn't planned but once again the two of them seem to exist on the same musical wavelength, he trusts Zoro to sing with him, to balance him out where it's needed.

"_I was having rotten luck and nothing went my way _

_'Til I stumbled on a clearing in the woods. _

_I found a town of leprechauns and grabbed each one for wishing on _

_But I would let them all go just for you. _

_I have crossed a natural plane and communed with the dead _

_But people always seem to want some proof. _

_No one even would believe, my love, that evil I got pictures of _

_But I would throw them all out just for you. _

_Anything for you _

_All of this is true _

_But the best story that I could ever tell _

_Is the one where I am growing old with you"_

The energy of the song picks up and Zoro's guitar comes into it's own, plucking the tune out perfectly. Sanji's eyes flutter shut and he only just manages to contain the wistful sigh and Zoro's amazing talent and the soul shattering noises that he can pull from that instrument.

"_My scar is from a polar bear, my curse is from a witch, _

_I've caught a giant squid in all the seven seas. _

_I've picked up rocks from distant moons astronomers will discover soon _

_But I would give them all back just for you. _

_I've gotten drunk and shot the breeze with kings of far off lands _

_They showed me wealth as far as I could see. _

_But their kingdoms seemed all shrivelly and they cried with jealousy _

_When I leaned in and told them about you._

_I'd give up anything _

_Anything for you_

_I'd give it all _

_All of this is true_

_But the best story that I could ever tell _

_Is the one where I am growing old with you. _

_All I've ever wanted, see, was to tell you honestly _

_I'd do anything for you. _

_I'd do absolutely anything for you."_

The room is quiet for just a beat as Zoro's guitar hums out the last note. There's a mere second of silence, practically not even that, before the room completely erupts into applause. Usopp throws himself at Zoro, wrapping his arms around Zoro's neck and incoherently sobbing into the other man's shirt.

"I love you man!" Usopp wails, muffled through the expensive fabric. Zoro mumbles something into Usopp's shirt that sounds suspiciously sentimental and the kind of thing that Sanji really shouldn't be eavesdropping on.

Kaya thoroughly distracts him by sneaking behind Zoro to catch him in a hug.

"That was beautiful. Thank you so much for that." She smiles at him sweetly.

"I just lent my voice, Zoro did almost all of the writing. I just asked dumb questions and wrote stuff down." Sanji says bashfully, his face reddening.

"I'm sure you did more than that." She smiles knowingly, though what she knows Sanji has no idea.

They sit down together and share a relieved grin, they did it and it worked great!

"Well… thanks Zoro. How's a girl supposed to top that?" Nami exclaims, standing up with a laugh as her speech begins.

The rest of the evening goes flawlessly, one thing that their friends know how to do is how to have a party. Zoro finally relaxes as the rest of the evening runs its course. The happy couple share a dance, they cut their cake and Usopp gets a fair amount of it in his face and to Sanji's glee almost everyone seems to get a photo of that. The one which he catches on his phone he thinks he might print off and frame it's so brilliant. The keyboard player's eyes are wide as Kaya's hand smears a great handful of cake and frosting across his cheek with his mouth open in what Sanji recalls to be a particularly girly shriek.

The drinks flow freely and all of them start getting at least a little drunk, he even spies Nami and Zoro having a drinking contest over by the bar, one which shows no sign of either side losing or admitting defeat. He's more than a little merry when Kaya catches him into a dance, he obliges her of course. He'd be crazy to deny such a pretty lady anything, much less someone as important as a bride.

He holds her close and dances with her, one hand in the small of her back and the other holding her slender hand. He takes a moment to admire her pretty new ring, just looking at it makes her break into happy giggles.

"I'm really glad that you came tonight Sanji." She smiles up at him.

"I'm delighted to have been invited! I hadn't been expecting an invitation having met you only so recently." He admits happily.

"Nonsense, you're a member of the band, which makes you family as far as I'm concerned. You know that being part of this band is more than just a job, it's a bond." She says wisely.

"I'm starting to understand that." He smiles and twirls her around the floor.

"You're such a gentleman Sanji." Kaya giggles as he pulls her back in again and moves into a smooth waltz.

"Of course my lady!" He chirps happily.

He's interrupted as Luffy, Franky and Zoro stampede past them. He raises an eyebrow when he sees that Zoro has his black and red electric guitar in hand and Luffy is bouncing around with his drumsticks.

"Uh oh. What are those idiots up to?" he mutters eyeing them. The three musicians leap up on stage and burst into a slightly drunk but very enthusiastic rendition of one of Franky's songs. It's one of Franky's in that it's one that he and Zoro wrote together and one that Sanji flatly refuses to sing. It's a certain level of silly that he's simply not willing to go into, singing like a robot included.

The song is funny as hell. Some strange imagining of some cyborg robot war accompanied by Luffy and Zoro singing along with crazed gusto. Zoro just loves it for the chance to play heavy and fast guitar to his heart's content. Sanji watches in a considerable amount of awe as Zoro's fingers run like crazy over the fretboard, making his instrument sing perfectly despite being more than a little drunk.

Zoro leans against Franky's back as the larger man belts out the ridiculous lyrics and Zoro shreds notes out at unbelievable speed.

"_Your iron fist will never knock me down,_

'_cause I'm powered,_

_by a conscious right to conduct my life without fear._

_Your tyranny burns my circuitry,_

_And I won't stand by,_

_I know my rights and I will fight, fight, fight,_

_YEEEEEEEAH!" _

"See what I mean?" Usopp's voice appears at their side. Sanji glances over to see Usopp having appeared by Kaya's side as the pair of them smile and look at each other. Sanji looks back up at Zoro who is currently on the receiving end of an overly strong and overly enthusiastic slap on the back courtesy of a rather drunk Franky.

"You're right, Sanji does." Kaya giggles, drawing Sanji's attention back.

"I what?" He asks in confusion.

"Nothing man. I'm gonna go…" Usopp trails off, heading towards the stage.

"Go. Play. Have fun. Love you." Kaya laughs, shooing him off in the right direction. Usopp laughs and runs into the stage as well.

"What do I do?" Sanji repeats, looking at Kaya.

"Just a little theory that Usopp and I have." Kaya says innocently and completely unhelpfully.

"Oh?" He says, raising a curious eyebrow.

"Usopp tells me everything you see. And I think he's right about this. You look at Zoro like Usopp looks at me. Or at least how he used to when he was too shy to tell me how he felt. You're in love with Zoro." She states matter-of-factly.

"I- What?!" He squeaks in horror.

"Ah! It's rude to lie to a bride, and probably bad luck too or something. If you want to deny it just keep silent. We're not going to say anything to him of course, and I wouldn't advise you to say anything to him tonight either. It's just an observation of ours." Kaya says shushing Sanji by putting her hand over his mouth.

"But Kaya…" He starts, taking her hand away.

"Don't. We both like you, and we think you're good for Zoro. He's been happier and more creative since you've come around. Don't think that we haven't noticed how much you've done for him. You helped him write a real love song, and I know it was for us but I saw your body language around him when you sang. You'd do anything for him just as much as Usopp would for me." She smiles knowingly at him.

"Sanji! C'mon, I need you. Can't sing remember, move it!" Zoro exclaims suddenly at his side, making Sanji leap about a foot in the air. He looks at the pink cheeked grinning guitarist and with some relief surmises that Zoro hadn't heard Kaya's disturbing words.

"Move it, idiot!" Zoro orders him, threading his fingers through Sanji's and hauling him away from the smiling Kaya and up on stage. Sanji is shoved in the direction of the microphone as Zoro grabs up his own guitar and begins playing.

Zoro's lucky that Sanji knows all of their songs off by heart from their intros because he's not been told what Zoro was planning on playing at all. As it is they all launch into a rendition of "The Future Freaks Me Out". They run through a few more songs before it becomes clear that Franky is becoming too drunk to keep up with the guitar playing on his end at which point they all disperse and let Chopper get back to DJ-ing.

The happy couple start making their rounds of all the guests at about eleven, they have a plane to catch for their honeymoon after all. Kaya has changed into something a little more comfortable for her flight, a pretty purple silk top and designer jeans. Before they go however Kaya has to toss her bouquet. Sanji makes sure to be well out of the way of all of the girls who have lined up ready to try to catch it. Sanji is well aware of the tradition that the lucky girl to catch the bouquet will be the next one married, which is why he's standing sensibly well out of the way with the other groomsmen. The last one any of them want to do is to get mauled by some over excited girl trying to catch herself some flowers and a husband.

"Okay! Just a second!" Kaya laughs, looking over her shoulder quickly at she turns her back on the ladies, preparing to throw. Usopp has his arms on her elbow and appears to be whispering something in her ear as he pulls her slightly in one direction, facing him a little more. Sanji smiles at the couple, Usopp is probably whispering some sweet nothing to his new bride, whatever he's saying is certainly making her giggle as she glances over her shoulder once more at the girls behind her.

She throws the bouquet up into the air and Sanji watches as the flowers arc up into the air under the watchful eyes of all of the bridesmaids and the female guests. He gasps as the flowers hits the chandelier and spins off to the side, causing all of the female guests to lurch to the side after it. The bouquet bounces off of one of the ceiling beams and seems to hang for just a second.

"The glasses!" Zoro gasps at Sanji's side, true enough if the flowers fall to the side they'll certainly set off a chain reaction through the tower of champagne glasses stacked on the table by the wall. Zoro shoves him hard in the back and they sprint the few paces to the champagne tower whilst the female guests cluster under the ceiling beam trying to see which way the precariously teetering flowers will fall. In a tangle of limbs the two of them cover the glass tower.

They breathe a sigh of relief as the flowers tip the other way right into the awaiting outstretched arms of the ladies. Robin leaps up and grabs for the bouquet, but her hand doesn't manage to grasp around the stems of the flowers and instead she ends up smacking it like a volleyball. Unfortunately she's smacking it right in the direction of the glass tower. He and Zoro jump at the same time. Sanji's flailing hands manage to slow down the projectile flowers and unfortunately he manages to smack Zoro right in the face with them, leaving the guitarist dazed in a small rainfall of gerbera petals.

Sanji fumbles and stills the dangerous projectile that is the bridal bouquet. It's then that he realises his rather… compromising position. He's pressed flush against Zoro who is looking at him dazed, admittedly from getting a smack to the head with a bunch of flowers. His legs are caught up with Zoro's with his thigh shoved between Zoro's legs as he leans pressed into Zoro's hip himself. On top of all of this improper closeness he also happens to have the bride's bouquet in his hands.

"So CUTE!" One of the female guests squeaks, causing him and Zoro to leap apart in embarrassed shock, nearly knocking over the champagne glasses themselves in their haste. Scarlett faced Sanji looks across at all the women who had been actually trying to catch the bouquet. Behind them stand Usopp and Kaya with identical broad grins, he watches as they grin at each other and share a not so subtle high five. Sanji realises in horror that there was nothing accidental about that throw at all.

"Aww, look at them!" Another girl giggles.

"You're bright red Sanji!" Nami laughs from amid the girls and snaps a quick picture of him.

"Kaya!" He pleads, holding up the bouquet.

"Oh no, I couldn't possibly throw again, it's bad luck!" Kaya laughs shaking her head and holding up her hands. Sanji thinks that it's very likely that Kaya made that up, though he would never accuse a lady and much less a bride of such a thing. Even if it is probably accurate.

"I think you'll make a very pretty bride, you'll look lovely in a dress." Zoro snickers at him, his cheeks flushed with drink.

"AS IF!" He shrieks indignantly and punches Zoro in the shoulder, making the other man laugh.

Sanji has to endure jokes about him being the next bride all the way through the night and no matter how much he tries to "lose" the bouquet people keep returning it to him. Eventually he just gives up and keeps the thing.

He and Zoro stay behind, helping the staff clear up, seeing off the last guests and helping Chopper to put their equipment in the van again. Unfortunately they are both too drunk to drive home and the van was too full to take them.

The two of them sit outside on a wooden bench, illuminated by the full moon and the soft fairy lights in the little hedges and hung in the rafters above them. It really is a magical and romantic place, perfect for a wedding.

"See, told you it'd all go perfectly." Sanji says quietly to Zoro, leaning against his shoulder as he runs his thumb along the soft gerbera petals. It really is a pretty bunch of flowers, he'll have to remember to put them in a vase when he gets home.

"Yeah, it was just what I wanted." Zoro sighs happily, his eyes shut as he leans against the back of the bench.

"I'm so happy that the best couple I know of got the perfect day." He adds with a small smile on his lips.

"Well you worked hard for it." Sanji agrees.

The two of them lapse back into silence and the sounds of the woodlands at night start to fill the air. The sound of the wind whispering through the trees, of the nighttime insects coming alive, crickets chirping and a distant owl softly hooting to its mate somewhere in the trees. Sanji falls into a sort of semi drunk trance, listening to the night-time sounds, so much so that he almost doesn't hear Zoro speak.

"Do you think everyone gets that?" Zoro asks quietly.

"Gets what?" Sanji asks in confusion.

"Someone like Kaya, a soul mate." Zoro says softly.

Sanji looks at Zoro a little startled, this kind of romantic talk is unlike Zoro, at least beyond the realm of discussing how Usopp feels for Kaya. He supposes that the moss head is a little drunk after all though and sometimes drunk people are a little emotional.

"I just think that if there is just one person then… most people probably never meet them. And people who aren't as lucky as Kaya and Usopp… we just end up making do with someone who'll have us." Zoro says with more than just a hint of sadness in his voice.

"I don't think it's as simple as that. I think people just fall in love. I don't think you can just fall in love with anyone though, but I also don't think there's just one person who could love you. You shouldn't have to settle at all, you'll get someone who… who looks at you like Usopp looks at Kaya." Sanji answers him, leaning his head against Zoro's shoulder. He hopes that Zoro can't see how much Sanji's face has gone red, or hear how hard his heart is hammering.

He remembers Kaya's words and those white hot flares of heat in his chest. He's… he's attracted to Zoro and… it's not just that any more.

"Well where are they then?" Zoro sighs despondently.

Sanji bites his lip and feels his heart hammer in his throat. Zoro sounds so lost and heartbroken, just hearing him makes Sanji's heart positively ache. He thinks it, but he doesn't say it.

'_I'm right here…'_

The taxi shows up then and, without a further word on their strange conversation, they fall into the car and slump together sleepily as they are driven home.

When they get back to their house they go inside the silent building of sleeping people, navigating their way up all of the stairs in the pre-dawn light shining through the windows. He has his arm around Zoro's shoulders and Zoro has his curled around the small of Sanji's back, his hand resting on Sanji's hip.

They walk wordlessly into their shared bathroom and Sanji sits on the edge of the bath to brush his teeth whilst Zoro washes his face, the layers of makeup washing off in with the soap. A thought occurs to him.

"Oh, I didn't tell you something earlier. I thought you'd want to know, but I didn't want to tell you at the time, you were too stressed." He says around his toothbrush.

"That's pretty suspicious." Zoro says and splashes his face with water and rubs gingerly around the bridge of his nose.

"I know Robin wouldn't want me to tell you at all, but I thought you should know. I don't like lying to you. Baby showed up right after Kaya did, tried to get into the wedding. I got her to leave and Robin scared her off too." Sanji says around his toothbrush.

He looks around, Zoro's occupying the sink so he can't spit his toothpaste out there. Ah, to hell with it. He spits into the bath and figures he'll rinse the tub out tomorrow. He looks back up at Zoro who is still and staring at his own reflection in the mirror. His hand ghosts over the cut in his nose.

"Thank you for getting rid of her. I really owe you for that. I wouldn't… I couldn't have dealt with that." He says flat and emotionless.

"S'okay." Sanji yawns and rinses his toothbrush off under the bath tap.

"And thanks… for telling me." Zoro adds, looking at him.

"No problem. Hey, you look a lot better. Let me see." Sanji says, catching Zoro. He tilts Zoro's jaw and carefully runs his thumb over the healed skin.

"Much better, a few days and you'll never know anything happened. Now, try to avoid big people in bars who want to hurt you yeah? I don't like seeing you all banged up." He smiles at the guitarist.

"Now clear out, I gotta piss. Then the bathroom's all yours. I feel like I could sleep for a week." He yawns, his jaw clicking with the force of it. He herds Zoro from the room and locks the door. Once he's done he lets Zoro back in and shuts his own door after him, clumsily strips naked and falls face down into his bed and straight into sleep.

A/N: Thanks for the patient wait guys! As you can probably tell from the length of this, it took a little while to write this chapter.

The songs are, in order:

Anything for You by Ludo

Cyborgs vs Robots by Ludo

The Future Freaks Me Out by Motion City Soundtrack


	9. Chapter 9

Sanji awakes the morning after the wedding with a slight hangover. The beer and wine were both good and pretty clean in terms of preservative chemicals which are the real things that give you a hangover. Even so he'd drunk a fair bit.

He doesn't… think that he was drunk last night. He grabs his phone blearily off of his night stand and peers at it owlishly just to check things.

He flicks open his image folder to see a range of self-taken photos, him with various people last night and a few shots of the venue itself. Nothing horribly embarrassing though, merely pictures of him looking a bit more rosy cheeked than normal, his smile a little wider and sloppier as the evening progresses. His email however has exploded, he flicks that open and sees a tonne of things with the word twitter in the title. He really needs to turn off those notifications, every time someone messages him or mentions him he gets and email and really it's getting a little old.

He opens twitter to see what the hell is going on.

He is greeted with a much retweeted picture of him at the wedding, pressed up against Zoro, riding his thigh by the looks of it too. The bouquet is in his hands, clutched tight to his chest. He and Zoro are staring wide eyed at each other and completely oblivious to the world around them and especially to whomever took this picture. Shit, the number of retweets for this thing is in the hundreds.

He isn't really sure what to make of the picture. On the one hand embarrassment is the natural reaction, the moment of flailing for that goddamn bouquet had been embarrassing enough without someone capturing it on film for all eternity. However the picture does present him with a unique opportunity to examine his and Zoro's reactions to the situation at his leisure, something he could hardly do at the time.

First himself. His eyes are wide and locked right on Zoro's, thankfully he's not gawping at the other man's mouth for a kiss or anything but the eye contact itself is pretty intimate. His face is stained with embarrassment and, as he recalls, an aroused blush. To his reassurance though Zoro appears to be every bit as red across his face, the tips of his ears pinking delightfully. However, he can't tell whether Zoro's blush is from mortification at their position in front of such a large audience or whether it's due to the same heart fluttering interest that Sanji had been experiencing. Okay, that he's still experiencing.

He rolls back onto his back with a sigh and throws his arm over his eyes. He tries to think. Zoro is... attractive and talented, he has no problems admitting that to himself. He can also concede that Zoro holds his attention far more than he reasonably should and that perhaps his fascination with the other man is more than a mere crush. Usopp and Kaya certainly seemed to think so, if he wasn't mistaken Luffy was also hinting something of the sort.

All of them seemed to be hinting at that particular "L" word that Sanji had in the past always been so much in avoidance of. Oh sure, he loved the idea of love and he wasn't above flinging out declarations of love to pretty girls left right and centre. However, when he was in a real relationship the word in question was carefully avoided. As a singer he knows all too well that words have power and a word like love should not be used lightly in any context where it could be taken seriously. He loves love and he respects it. He also avoids using it in his head when it comes to partners, actual or potential. He doesn't want to trick himself into falling in love if it's not the real thing. There's nothing wrong with being mutually attracted to someone, to dating someone but not being in love with them, that kind of thing took time sometimes. What was wrong was to delude yourself or someone else into thinking that love was there when it wasn't.

But with Zoro... It feels wrong to put his feelings for the musician into the purely platonic, and it certainly feels amiss to write it off as just a crush or a passing obsession. Does that mean that he's in love with Zoro then? He chews on his lip and remembers the feeling when Zoro was writing and playing for him, that pure magic of creation that Zoro had dragged him in by the scruff of his neck and submersed him into. That had felt like nothing else ever had. The show had been the same, as if some current was connecting their souls and he was entirely on Zoro's wavelength.

It's amazing, it feels like a once in a lifetime thing for sure. But is that really love? Perhaps he is just Zoro's muse, Zoro might well be his for all the creativity which he's brought out in Sanji that he'd only dreamed of possessing before. That was a very special kind of bond and he'd really hate to lose it by being so stupid as to assume it's love when it's not.

His phone pings with another retweet which sets of a short cascade of further sharing of the damned picture. He silences his phone and switches off the alerts.

He remembers that he was meant to put a picture of Zoro up on twitter for Baby as part of his deal to make her leave. He hadn't really considered if he was going to hold to that but even if he had this would not have been the picture that he chose.

Shit, if she really was torn up about Zoro then this picture would hardly help. This is really beyond insensitive. Not that it's his picture or that he can stop people from posting it over and over again. There's just nothing that he can do.

More importantly, what is Zoro going to say about all of this?

He may as well get it over with.

He dresses and heads out into the hallway. Zoro's bedroom door is open but he's not in there, Sanji squints at his bed and spots Zoro's waistcoat from last night thrown across it, something Zoro did as they came up the stairs and into the bathroom. So… either Zoro threw it back on top of the bed, unlikely, or Zoro hasn't slept in that bed all night. That option is more likely and more concerning. He peeks around the door, the rest of Zoro's fancy suit is scattered about and his wardrobe is open. Hm.

He checks the kitchen in case Zoro is in there and is surprised to note that it's clean. All of the washing up from yesterday is put away and the washing which still had to be done has been completed.

The room has the tang of cleaner to it and Sanji opens the oven on a hunch and finds it sparkling clean.

"_I'm sick of the things I do when I'm nervous,_

_Like cleaning the oven or checking my tyres." _

He sings under his breath. Zoro's own words about his anxiety.

His suspicion levels rising he goes into the garage and indeed finds the tyre pump out of place and Zoro's bike sat somewhere different to where it was last night. Still no Zoro though. Where else might he be?

"_Or counting the number of tiles in the ceiling."_ He sings the next line. Shit, where might that be?

He thinks of tiles on the ceiling and it occurs to him that the only place that he can think of is the music studio. Shit, why didn't he check there first?

He opens the door to the music room when he sees Zoro draped across his bean bag staring up at the ceiling, it doesn't even cross his mind that Zoro could be avoiding him. Zoro does indeed appear to have been staring blankly up at the ceiling, he's not even playing any of his guitars, or writing, at least he doesn't appear to be at any rate.

"So, you're all anxious huh? What about?" He asks, coming closer to Zoro. He looks down at him and despite the make up on his face he can see that Zoro's eyes have dark circles under that indicate pretty strongly that the other man has not slept yet. If Zoro wasn't being all anxious Sanji might have just put it down to garden variety insomnia or left over excitement from the wedding.

"Fuck off, it's none of your business!" Zoro snaps, swatting in his vague direction.

There is a moment's pause for thought from Zoro.

"And I'm not anxious!" He adds irritably.

"Well, I think you are. It may well be none of my business, and that's fine I guess. But don't go saying that you aren't when you are, that's how I found you. Followed your own lyrics here. Thanks for the clean oven too." He adds with a smirk and just for demonstration sings through the song lines in question.

Zoro's mouth pulls down into a grimace that suggests very much that he regrets writing that song.

"So, do you want to talk about it?" He asks curiously.

"No." Zoro answers him firmly.

"I figured you'd be the one all highly strung this morning, or haven't you seen the Internet explosion yet?" Zoro responds instead. Deflecting, Sanji notes.

"Eh. It's kind of a compromising photo I guess, especially now that I know your ex stalks you on twitter. Or all of us perhaps." Sanji sighs, sitting down on the floor. Zoro stays staring up at the ceiling, his brow furrowed.

"How'd you find that out?" Zoro asks him.

"She told me. Got me to promise to upload a picture of you in order to make her leave yesterday. Wasn't sure if I was going to or not, I was going to talk to you about it before I did anything but I guess that's kind of a moot point now. Probably not the picture she wanted." Sanji snorts, finding himself incredibly curious as to what her reaction might be.

Instead he watches Zoro's. The other man's brow furrows further, as if some incredibly unpleasant idea is running through that hollow head of his.

"I doubt that it was." He says quietly, and nothing more.

Sanji debates with himself back and forth for a moment. He decides he'll be straight with Zoro, lying to him or omitting certain information wasn't a basis for a good relationship of any kind and it probably would do him no favours in the long run. Even so...

"I don't know if you want to hear this. But... when I was talking to Baby yesterday... I got the impression that she's probably not over you. She seemed as snarled up inside about you as you seem to be about her. Which... isn't to say that I think you two should get back together or anything. I just... thought you ought to know." He says carefully.

Zoro doesn't say anything, instead he sits up on his bean bag and looks at Sanji properly for the first time that day. He makes total eye contact in a way that simply pins Sanji to where he's sat, he gets the feeling that Zoro is assessing him. Stripping him bare so to speak- uh, wait, he shouldn't be thinking that. Bad metaphor. Whatever. Zoro seems to be looking right into him, as if weighing up what Sanji has said and trying to work out just why he said it.

"No one's said that to me before." Zoro says, slow and carefully neutral. His sharp gaze is still on Sanji.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm not impartial here. I thought Baby was nice when she was the girl I met in the coffee shop, but having heard what she did to you and seen what she can do to you... Well... I think you deserve honesty and to know what's going on, but that doesn't mean that I'd be throwing a party for you if you ended up getting back together with her. Frankly the idea gives me the creeps." Sanji states flatly.

"So why tell me?" Zoro asks curiously.

"Cause otherwise I'd be sneaking around behind your back, that's not cool. Besides, you're a grown ass man, you make your own decisions. Least I can do is give you all the information that I know." He sighs, scratching the back of his neck uncomfortably.

He's glad that he doesn't look away though because a slow smile spreads over Zoro's face, washing away the earlier tenseness and Zoro gives him a look that's pretty damn affectionate. It sends a cascade of happy fluttering things around in Sanji's stomach and he's pretty sure that he'd sell his soul to see that expression whenever he wants.

"I appreciate that." the other man says softly, resting his chin on his fist and continuing to fix Sanji with that bone melting smile.

"No problem." Sanji answers as coolly as possible despite his internal feelings. It's kind of pathetic that he's so desperate for Zoro's approval as to be affected like this but... well, there's not a lot that he can do about that.

"How about trading some honesty for honesty then? Did you sleep last night?" Sanji questions, his eyes carefully watching Zoro. Now Zoro's smile fades and his mouth scrunches to the side, displeased with the question.

"I didn't, and unless you want to use that last question of yours then that's all you're getting." Zoro answers tightly. Sanji does not want to use his last question on something as trivial as that, curious though he is. He decides to drop the issue.

"So," Zoro begins and falls back on the bean bag again with a whoosh of displaced breath, "what do you make of that picture then?"

"A... potentially useful first lesson in how being in a band like this means that I don't get to control who takes my picture or what they do with it?" Sanji remarks with a raised eyebrow. Hell, it's a better answer than "confusing and slightly arousing".

"Good idea. Good advice is to not read comments online either." Zoro adds.

"I'll keep it in mind. Later." He sighs and gets to his feet.

He throws together a quick breakfast for the rest of the band, those that aren't off on honeymoon of course, and heads off out into the city. It doesn't take him long to get to the Baratie, nor to go inside and fall onto his old sofa in there. He looks at the image on his phone again. It's quite a photo if nothing else. He is in out of his depth here and he's in real need of some fatherly advice. It's not often that he admits to Zeff that he needs his help. Even as a kid he was pretty self-sufficient, always more comfortable in figuring things out for himself than he was letting Zeff teach him things. The two of them had a sort of unspoken bargain where if Zeff saw him careening towards something really bad or if Sanji was really in over his head then help would be given, otherwise Sanji was on his own. They both preferred it that way.

Sensible people who were properly in touch with their emotions might be tense upon seeing each other again, what with having their last few in person meetings being so tense and fraught. They are not normal people however, so the whole thing is fine.

Zeff spots him as he comes down the hallway and stares at him for a second before walking into the room. Zeff sits down in his old faded armchair with Sanji splayed across the couch. Sanji smirks, thinking that this whole scene looks awfully psychoanalytical, as if he's a patient on the couch and Zeff is his shrink. It's not too far off though he supposes.

"I think I might be in love with Zoro. And I mean that. I've never felt this strongly for anyone." Sanji announces.

Zeff seems to weigh this up for a few moments.

"Who's Zoro?" He asks after a few moments more than that.

Right. Zoro didn't come to his accidental audition. Zeff has never met him. Duh.

"This guy. He's the guitarist in the band, the songwriter too." Sanji answers and opens up the image of him and Zoro on his phone and throws it carefully to Zeff. Zeff catches it and looks, to his credit he doesn't really react.

"I see you're being subtle as always kid." His old man says flatly and throws the phone back.

"Well, what's your advice?" Sanji huffs sitting up and scowling at him.

"It's your life. In my experience you know love when you're in it." Zeff says with a shrug.

Sanji scowls at him. A younger version of himself might have leapt upon that opportunity to ask Zeff if that's what it was like with his mother. He doesn't really remember her, he remembers that she looked like him, but not much else. It's strange what things that he recalls about her sometimes, her laugh or the tilt of her smile. But for one reason or another she abandoned both of them and there's no sense questioning Zeff about it. In all honesty he feels bad for all the years he'd questioned his old man about her, Zeff clearly never fell for anyone else again and in his darkest times Sanji wonders if the love of his old man's life left them because of him, if it was him that deprived Zeff of his soul mate.

"I know that I've never felt like this before, and I know that I'm attracted to him, that I respect him. But I've no idea what it really means. Beyond just knowing what this isn't I've no idea if this is the real deal." He sighs in frustration.

"You'll work it out kid." Zeff nods at him. Sanji doesn't find himself reassured. It's not really the answer that he came here for but... well, he supposes that this is one of those times where there just aren't any easy answers. It sucks but what can he do?

"You say he's a guitarist huh? Is he good?" The old man asks curiously.

"So good." He finds himself grinning goofily, the way Zoro pulls music from his guitars is high up on the list of hottest things that Sanji has ever seen.

"Does he have a job too?" Zeff asks conversationally and shoves Sanji off of the sofa so that he can rearrange the pillows. He picks up an old newspaper and Sanji helps him start to clean up, the old geezer has at least kept the place relatively clean whilst he's been gone. He does worry a little privately that Zeff can't take care of himself without him, both because of the leg and because of his tendency to work himself too hard. It's not like he can keep to stern an eye on his old man now that he doesn't live here.

"Yeah, he works at the coffee place, just a block or so down actually. You know, the independent one. Kinda funny how I've probably walked past him for years and never realised that we'd end up in the same band." Sanji chuckles at the strangeness of the world and picks up a takeout menu off of the floor.

"What are his parents like?" the old man questions.

"His mum is dead and he's not in contact with his dad- wait. Why do you care?" Sanji frowns, suddenly looking at his old man.

"Just making conversation, manner-less brat." Zeff snorts and whaps Sanji around the back of the head with a newspaper.

"My ass you are, you're trying to sneak information about whether Zoro's suitable for me or not!" He accuses indignantly.

Zeff snorts as if the very idea is stupid and walks off unevenly to the kitchen, his fake leg thunking on the floor. Sanji is not going to let him get away that easily.

"You totally are! What's next, gonna ask me if he has any tattoos or if he's got his tongue pierced or something?!" Sanji yells, following him.

"Does he?" Zeff asks, dumping the rubbish in the kitchen bin and fixing Sanji with a scrutinising look.

"I- not from what I've seen but it's NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!" Sanji shouts, waving his arms. He's not some fucking virginal maiden that Zoro's trying to take to prom or something, he doesn't need his dad checking out his love life and approving or disapproving. This isn't what he came here for!

"And how much of him _have_ you seen, hm?" the old bastard questions, making Sanji's skin immediately flush scarlet despite having nothing much to hide on that front. Still, the mere idea of seeing Zoro naked is enough to render him with the complexion of a tomato.

He throws up his arms and lets out a strangled cry of frustration, stomping out of the Baratie. He's not going to deal with this shit anymore.

He goes back home and tries to retain some sense of normalcy and sanity. They play video games in the main room and he doesn't even have the heart to pretend like he isn't mentally tracking Zoro's movements around the building. The other man seems listless and Sanji has no idea why.

When he makes dinner that night Zoro is quiet and sleepy looking, the dark circles under his eyes are more prominent.

Sanji stays up late but notices that whilst the others all split off and head to bed Zoro doesn't. Zoro is instead sat, unseeing before the television whilst some shitty MTV movie that he knows Zoro isn't watching plays out on screen.

Sanji lingers at the door, unsure about what to do. Despite his apparently unyielding non specific heart fluttery emotions towards Zoro he has no real excuse to tell him to get his ass to bed and go to sleep. After all he's not actually in a relationship with the other man and has no real basis to order Zoro around, in fact even if he was in a relationship with the other man he'd feel somewhat uncertain in doing that. He chews on his lip as he lingers in the doorway, watching Zoro's slumped and energy sapped form.

He decides to leave the sleepless man to his own devices and heads upstairs to his own bed.

Sanji stays there for a little while, trying to fall asleep, but it doesn't come easily, his mind keeps orbiting around thoughts of Zoro. Both in Zoro's sudden sleeplessness but also his unnameable feelings for the other man.

Maybe... maybe he should just put his intentions out there in the open and see what comes of it. He's not certain to know whether or not he's in love with Zoro before anything starts, after all, don't people usually grow into that stuff in a relationship? Maybe he should just... ask Zoro out? It's not like Zoro is seeing anyone, and he knows that the other man wants someone to love him, after his semi drunk and semi philosophical ramblings after the wedding. So yeah, maybe he should just man up and tell him.

Alternatively, that is a horrible idea. He loves being in this band and he really likes Zoro. The last thing he wants to do is to get kicked out of the band for making the moves on the moss headed musician. Besides, the last person Zoro dated was his singer, he's likely to not want to repeat that particular mistake. Even so it's just a lot of bad baggage to start a relationship off with. Anyway, this is all assuming that Zoro is interested in him. Sure he's caught Zoro staring, but eyeballing another man and actually being interested in them are two different things entirely.

But... their friends certainly seem to be in favour of it. So perhaps they know what he should be doing. That would indicate that he should go for Zoro.

Alternatively Zoro might clock him in the face and refuse to work with him again.

Sanji feels a little schizophrenic arguing with himself like this. It's as if the emotional and rational parts of his self have drawn a line through his mind and declared war. Great. He falls into an uneasy sleep, dreaming of Zoro's sleepless form and of Zeff's relentless questioning regarding Zoro.

When he wakes it's in that weird time where it's no longer night outside but neither is it morning yet, dawn hasn't yet happened but the sky is definitely lighter. He slides from under his sheets and moves across the hall, Zoro's bed is still unoccupied and showing no signs that Zoro has tried to be in it at all. Zoro hasn't slept for nearly a solid 48 hours then. That can't be good.

Sanji returns to his bedroom and picks his blanket up off of the bed. He drapes it over his head and shoulders and leaves again. His feet lead him to the living room and lo and behold Zoro is still sat on the sofa, slumped even lower against the cushions, his eyes glazed and dark. Sanji decides that enough is enough.

"I can't sleep." He announces, climbing over the back of the sofa and sliding down against Zoro's side. He tucks his feet up under him and sighs wearily. He curls his blanket around himself and looks up at Zoro. The other man is giving him a sleep deprived stupid look, like he's too tired to identify what Sanji actually is, let alone listen to his words.

"You're a hopeless mess." He mutters, looking at Zoro. Subtlety is wasted on Zoro at the best of times, now it's even less appropriate. Sanji grabs the remote and turns the channel over to one of the music channels, it's one of those slow smooth jazz channels. Not Sanji's kind of thing at all, but what it does provide is low, ambient, melodic white noise.

He turns his attention back to the blearily blinking guitarist and shoves him down on the sofa. Zoro falls back onto the sofa sideways in a heap of limbs and whined protest. Sanji shoves him this way and that until he is laying on his back and, catching Zoro's legs in a tangle with his own, settles himself against Zoro's body. He works Zoro's arm under his neck so that he's resting his head on the join between Zoro's pectoral and his shoulder muscles.

"I can't sleep, so you're going to stroke my hair until I can." Sanji outright lies.

"What are you, a fucking cat?" Zoro protests sleepily, fixing Sanji with a glare.

"Do what I say, or I'll bite you." Sanji threatens and snaps his jaw shut threateningly.

"You're a weird son of a bitch." Zoro grumbles but to Sanji's pleasure Zoro's nimble guitar playing fingers start to stroke through Sanji's locks. He smiles to himself and revels in the pleasant feeling.

Truth be told he's not really having trouble sleeping, except for the ill-ease which keeps waking him up, entirely spawned by the knowledge that Zoro _isn't_ sleeping. The hair stroking thing was kind of a stroke of genius, pardon the pun, it was something for Zoro to do with his hands that was repetitive and soothing and even more useful would give Sanji a gauge of how awake Zoro was.

The other man strokes his hair gently running through sections of hair with careful fingers which never tangle or pull the hair. The real challenge of this is for Sanji to stay awake longer than it will take Zoro to fall asleep.

He has his hand resting softly over Zoro's stomach and he notices that after a little while Zoro's breathing starts to slow down a little. Sanji can hear Zoro's heart and that too is reducing in pace ever so slowly. Zoro shifts a little every so often but he seems to be relaxing.

Sanji sighs and tries to keep himself awake despite his eyes having slid shut long ago. Zoro's hand falls still and slides limply down Sanji's hair for a second or two. His hand twitches and Zoro breathes a little deeper for a moment. The guitarist settles his hand on the back of Sanji's skull and returns to stroking with just his fingers, instead of moving his whole hand with it.

Sanji hears the shuffle of Zoro's shirt as Zoro's head tilts to the side sleepily and slowly but surely his breathing and his heartbeat slow even further and his fingers in Sanji's hair stop moving completely. Sanji smiles in sleepy satisfaction. Zoro is asleep. He only has a few moments to revel in his smugness before sleep drags him under as well.

A sound wakes Sanji. He blearily opens his eyes to see Chopper standing over him with a camera and a sneaky smirk on his little tan face. He shoots the young teenager his best murder face and settles back into Zoro's side to sleep. Unfortunately just that much has apparently disturbed Zoro's sleep and the larger man's arm tightens around Sanji's back and Zoro rolls onto his side, throwing an arm around Sanji's midsection and a leg over both of Sanji's. He then rolls a little further so he's covering at least half of Sanji's body with his own.

Chopper's eyes go wide as if all his Christmases have come at once. He snaps as many pictures as he can and then rushes away before Sanji can work out some way to exact revenge without disturbing Zoro's sleep. He's got nothing and Zoro is really warm, warm enough to pull Sanji back down into a fog of slumber.

Zoro rather cunningly dispels any possibility that their joint awakening could be awkward by jerking awake and kneeing Sanji right in the thigh and subsequently off of the sofa with an undignified squeal.

"I hate you, you bastard." Sanji wheezes from the ground, his tailbone giving a painful throb as pins and needles start to shoot down his leg where Zoro kneed him. Zoro peers down at him over the edge of the sofa.

"Ya always come and snuggle up with people you hate?" Zoro smirks down at him.

"_Oh thank you Sanji for helping me finally sleep by gracing me with your presence. _Gee, no problem Zoro." Sanji parrots back to himself, putting on a stupid high pitch for Zoro's voice which is completely non representative of Zoro's actual tone of voice but serves very well to piss him off.

"I don't recall saying that I was having trouble sleeping, or asking for your help. Not that having your carcass next to me would help with that either. I seem to recall you to be the one to come to me with sleeping problems." Zoro teases. Sanji scowls up at him and regrets giving Zoro an easy excuse like that, though at the time it had seemed like the only way that he stood a chance of getting Zoro to not, you know, die of sleep deprivation.

"What time is it anyway?" He grumbles, thoroughly ignoring Zoro's attempts to goad him. He looks at his watch and sees that it's midday.

"Fuuuuck. I had better make lunch." he grumbles and gets to his feet.

"Yep, go do that servant man." Zoro smirks up at him and settles back onto the sofa with his arms folded behind his head and closes his eyes with a smug grin. Sanji flips him off and goes off to make lunch. It's strange, when Nami offered him the job of cooking for all of them he had thought that it was a great deal. He got paid to do something that he liked with no commute and plenty of praise. But three meals a day every day (well, except days like today where he overslept or something) is starting to get a little tiring. Which isn't to say that he's bored of cooking at all, more that there are other things that he'd rather be doing.

Home made soup is the order of the day. Fresh onions and potatoes for taste and texture along with butter fried mushrooms, tiny florets of broccoli, little slices of carrot and plenty of cream. He bakes fresh bread rolls to go along with it, nice enough to still be warm from the oven by the time that lunch is done, yet small enough to cook in time.

All of that is great and all, but he really wishes he could get either Zoro or that stupid smooth jazz out of his head. Both would be great but Sanji is a realist if nothing else. That treacherous feeling inside of him that might possibly _maybe_ be love is snaring it's way around all of his vital organs at the memory of sleeping with Zoro. Granted, it's not the kind of sleeping with Zoro that he would have perhaps chosen if offered the choice, but it was awfully intimate in its own right. After all, the Zoro that he first knew would never have allowed him to do that at all. Something has definitely changed between them and Sanji just wants to know what the hell it's called.

The others show up for lunch when the smell of soup permeates the house along with the smell of freshly baking bread. Well, most people turn up. Usopp is of course not there, he's off on some beach with his new wife, Zoro however should be there but is not.

"Sleep well?" Nami smiles sneakily at him. Sanji resists scowling, he wouldn't do such a thing to a lady after all. He's going to blame Chopper for sharing his predicament with Zoro though and shoots a scowl his way instead.

"I did my lovely mellorine, so sorry for delaying lunch, my sincerest apologies." He flutters in answer.

"I'm going to go find that green-headed idiot. Don't you dare touch our food Luffy or I'll throw you in the washing machine and turn it on with you in it!" Sanji threatens and leaves the room with a bow to the girls.

He stalks his way out to the living room, hoping that his threat to Luffy will be enough to keep the bottomless pit that is their front man out of their bowls of soup and plates of bread until he gets back with Zoro. Zoro is sprawled over the sofa snoring softly. Part of him wants to climb over the back of the sofa and spread himself on Zoro's warm body all over again. He's not going to do that though, and whilst he could indulge his fluffy feelings towards the other man he doesn't think it's such a great idea, just because he likes him doesn't mean that he has to be nice to him all the time after all. Besides, winding Zoro up is such good fun.

He snags a cushion from the armchair nearby and holds it as high over Zoro's head as it can go before dropping it right on the idiot's face, startling him awake in a most undignified manner.

"Lunch, moron." He announces and saunters out of the room as cool as ice. He is so cool. He is the very prince of cool. He is derailed in his thoughts by a sofa cushion smacking him across the back of the head.

"You bastard!" He yelps and leaps after Zoro, chasing him through hallways and eventually into the dining room where Zoro skids over to his side of the table and sits down innocently, silently daring Sanji to break Nami's strictly upheld 'no fighting around the expensive dinner table' rule. He scowls at Zoro and silently vows to get him back. In the meantime he bides his time and eats his lunch.

"So... if Sanji helped you write that song for Usopp... does that mean that Sanji's a songwriter now too?" Luffy asks curiously, having licked his bowl clean despite most people being merely halfway through theirs.

"No." Sanji answers.

"Yes." Zoro also answers at the same moment.

The two of them look at each other.

"What? No way, I just helped. I can't do what you do!" Sanji says shaking his head.

"You could too. You have the same wavelength as me, you helped me finish that goddamn song that I've been working on for forever." Zoro argues back with a frown.

"That's not the same thing at all, I can't do that writing music and singing it at the same time thing!" he protests, not entirely certain that Zoro's ability to do that isn't some kind of voodoo.

"Very few people can." Robin points out reasonably, looking at each of them warily, as if a fight might break out.

"He could." the guitarist retorts, waving a spoon in Sanji's direction in a vaguely demeaning manner.

"I could not!" Sanji squawks indignantly.

"BULLSHIT!" the other man shouts.

"This is the oddest vaguely complimentary argument I've ever heard." Franky notes, looking at them.

"How many of those do you hear anyway?" Nami frowns, looking up at the blue haired guy.

"Fair point. Hey Zoro, what happened to your nose?" Franky asks, pointing to the bridge of Zoro's nose curiously. Sanji looks at him and sees that the make up that was on there has either been washed off and not reapplied or simply rubbed off without Zoro noticing.

The guitarist blinks in surprise and touches his own nose.

"Ah. Managed to fall up some stairs on the way back after the wedding." Zoro lies easily. A shiver of discomfort rushes up Sanji's spine on hearing it with such ease, he wants to yell that it's not what happened.

"Well, good thing you did that after the wedding and not before, we're lucky your black eye went down in time. Can you imagine what those pictures would have been like otherwise?" Nami say oblivious to the truth.

"Ha ha, yeah. Imagine that." Zoro mutters and deliberately does not look at Sanji.

Still at least they weren't arguing about Sanji's entirely fictional song writing talents any more.

"You will write a song and sing at the same time." Zoro declares, getting back on track and staring Sanji down.

Well shit. Zoro is apparently now a mind reader, a thought concerning enough in itself.

"You're crazy." Sanji mutters and picks his bowl up and dumps it in the sink. He ignores Zoro and leaves the room, deciding that he'll leave the washing up until later. He doesn't want to be around this stupid argument with Zoro, he kind of prefers the other man when he was all sleep deprived and dopey. Now he's just annoying again.

And it's not even like Sanji really wants to be a songwriter either, sure it'd be nice but it's inherent niceness doesn't make Sanji desperate to do it. Besides, he's happy just being a damn good singer. Writing is Zoro's thing. Along with singing and playing the guitar, the triple talented ass.

He makes it as far as the staircase before Zoro grabs him by the shoulder.

"Come practice with me." Zoro says, looking up at him from where Sanji is halted on the first step of the staircase in the main hall.

Sanji wants to say no, Sanji wants to tell Zoro to fuck off.

"You think I'm that dumb? You're just trying to get me down there to prove your silly point that you think I can write and sing at once, and I can't, so it's a waste of my time." Sanji reasons.

"If you're so sure, then what's the harm? Besides, we need to practice, you know that as soon as Usopp gets back Nami's going to be throwing us into shows left right and centre." Zoro points out with a challenging grin.

"I'm insulted that you think I'm this easy to manipulate." he says, folding his arms.

"That's not a no." Zoro smirks.

"If only to prove you wrong." Sanji grouses and follows Zoro to the music room. He's not being manipulated, he's showing Zoro up. That's what's happening here.

Zoro could of course make this a little easier on him by not looking like a kid on Christmas morning as he flits about and picks up his guitar, looking right at Sanji with excited anticipation.

Sanji looks around the music studio but none of the others are there and Zoro doesn't appear to be waiting for them either.

"They're not coming, wouldn't want you to get all shy now." Zoro smirks teasingly.

"Nothing to be shy about, nothing's going to happen. It's not like I've secretly got some ability to do that song writing and singing witchcraft that you do. I think I'd have found out by now if I did." he reasons.

"Not true, I can't always do it and it took me ages to find that I could. It's only cause I practice that I can do it when I want more often than not. Although... before you joined I'd sort of lost the ability to do it a little." Zoro frowns, pausing in plugging in his guitar.

Sanji chalks up in his head another damage point done to Zoro by Baby.

"So if this ability is so flaky, what makes you so convinced that I can do it right now? Even _if_ your entirely unsubstantiated idea that I can do it at all is right, and that's a big if, what makes you think that I can do it on command?" he reasons.

"I feel it." Zoro intones seriously, his hand touching his own chest.

"Well, fuck, that just clears that right fucking up doesn't it? Shit, why didn't you say that you _felt it_ earlier? I could have saved all of this clearly foolish skepticism, boy is my face red now." he mocks, his tone flat and sarcastic.

"Shut your yap." Zoro snaps at him.

"Drumming!" Luffy declares bursting into the room and throwing himself into the seat behind the drum kit and immediately launching into some very enthusiastic drumming. Sanji and Zoro just watch him for a few moments, both vaguely accepting that neither of them will ever either understand or be able to control Luffy at all.

"I need to warm up, and it's always useful to have someone to keep me in time. You up for that Luffy?" Zoro grins. Sanji rolls his eyes, it's not as if he doesn't know what Zoro's doing. He's trying to get him in a musical mood to make him write a song. He's not stupid after all.

Zoro starts playing, he's running through scales and his usual warm up routine.

"It'll be fun. It's easy, you just let whatever's in your head or in your heart come to the surface. It's not like you've not got a quick mouth on you anyway. What're you scared of?" Zoro challenges him with a smirk.

"I'm not scared. You can't just make a song out of anything, you can't just bring a part of yourself into whatever words your mouth spits out. It doesn't... life doesn't work like that." Sanji pouts.

"Sure it does. Have you never done that whole word association thing? It's like that, you can have someone start you off like you did for me inadvertently before or... or you just let the different parts of your mind do it." Zoro explains. Sanji's mind instantly flicks to his internal war over his feelings for Zoro. That is even MORE reason not to do this, what if that came out?!

"If Zoro does it first will you consider it?" Luffy breaks in. Sanji jumps, he'd almost forgotten that their front man was there at all. Luffy is watching him and giving him a look that suggests that it's not so much as a question but rather a polite way of giving an order.

"Yeah, I'll go first. Come on." Zoro says encouragingly.

"Fine, I'll consider it. That's all." he mutters, knowing in some way that he's just doomed himself.

"Yeah!" Zoro grins, clearly pleased.

"I don't get how you can do this though, even if you can make things rhyme on the fly how do you know that the lyrics that you sing are going to make any sense or that they're not going to be really awkward?" Sanji questions despite himself. Really he doesn't know why he's asking, it's not like he's going to try doing this, he _knows_ that he can't.

"Sanji, you sing my songs. Do the lyrics always rhyme, make sense or sound cool?" Zoro snorts with a smirk. Sanji casts his mind over their songs. Well, okay, Zoro isn't one of those people who needs every line to rhyme but he thinks that they're plenty cool in a surreal sort of way.

"See?" Zoro laughs.

"Whatever, let's see you do this magic on command then. I'm waiting." Sanji says, folding his arms and staring at Zoro expectantly. He really wants Zoro to fail, or pull out, that way he doesn't have to do this either.

No such luck though as Zoro starts to pick out a simple rhythm on his guitar. Luffy laughs and joins in with the drums. Zoro heads to what is now firmly in Sanji's mind as Zoro's side of their shared microphone. Out of habit he slides into his own space. Zoro grins at him, his eyes flashing bright and mischievous in a way that makes Sanji's heart flutter. Zoro starts to sing.

"_Let's get fucked up and die..." _Zoro starts. Sanji raises an eyebrow, that's one hell of a start.

"_I'm speaking figuratively, of course_

_Like the last time that I committed suicide... social suicide"_

Sanji can't help but grin at that. Okay, so Zoro is sort of proving a point about his slightly nonsensical and awkward lyrics being okay.

"_Yeah, so I'm already dead,_

_On the inside but I can still pretend, _

_with my memories and photographs,_

_I have learned to love the lie."_

Sanji watches Zoro and still finds himself amazed at how Zoro is just pulling this song fully formed from... from thin air! The guitar kicks up and Luffy bounces into a fuller and stronger beat.

Zoro looks up at him and for some reason the eye contact sends a shock down Sanji's spine and his feet couldn't move him from the spot any more than they could if they'd been welded there. Zoro sings and some part of Sanji knows that it's all at him... it's all... _for_ him. His breath hitches at Zoro's words.

"_I wanna know what it's like to be awkward and innocent, not belligerent._

_I wanna know how it feels to be useful and pertinent and have common sense.. yeah_

_Let me in, let me in to the club, cuz I wanna belong,_

_And I need to get strong, and if memory serves,_

_I'm addicted to words and they're useless"_

Oh god, Sanji can feel it. Every emotion running through Zoro is somehow shooting it's way through Sanji's system too. He has no idea how this is even possible. Is this was being a muse is about? He can feel Zoro's regret and self doubt at not being someone different. He can feel that underneath all of the prickly outside of Zoro he still just wants someone to be okay with who he is.

Sanji restrains the urge to rip the guitar from him and grab him close. He wants to force Zoro to see just who he really is, because if Zoro could see himself as Sanji sees him... he wouldn't change a thing.

"_In this department," _

Zoro shakes his head at that lyric and Sanji can tell that he's abandoned it as soon as he's said it. He supposes that this is part of what Zoro was trying to convince him, that it doesn't have to be perfect first time.

"_Let's get fucked up and die.._

_I'm riding hard on the last legs of every lie,_

_And the BMX bike of my life is about to explode,_

_I'm about to explode._

_I'm a mess, I'm a wreck."_

Zoro feels like he's coming off kilter again, the same way Sanji could feel it before when he was writing like this. Either way, he doesn't like hearing Zoro talk about himself or his life like that. So... on a knee jerk reaction he cuts in and sings instead, the words seeming to come from... nowhere and everywhere at once. His tone is forceful, as if he could possibly convince the surprised looking guitarist to accept his words if he just sings with enough power.

"_I am perfect, and I have learned to accept,_

_all my problems and short comings,_

_Cause I am so visceral,"_

"_yet deeply inept." _Zoro cuts back in with a grin. Sanji rolls his eyes and sighs. Zoro steps in closer to him and sings again, as if what he's singing is personal just for Sanji. The whole thing feels so raw and powerful and that feeling... that unnamed feeling in his chest for Zoro is simply getting louder and louder with every word out of the other man's mouth. He tries to force it down and only just manages.

"_I want to thank you for being a part of my forget-me-nots and marigolds,_

_And all the things that don't get old,_

_Is it legal to do this? I surely don't know._

_It's the only way I have learned to express myself, _

_through other peoples' descriptions of life,_

_I'm afraid, I'm alone and entirely useless."_

Sanji hears himself gasp and he clenches his fists to still himself. Zoro repeats his previously abandoned lyric and then launches into the next verse. Zoro backs away from him now, his eyes coming off of Sanji and ripping the connection away as suddenly as it started. Sanji jolts at the loss and wants Zoro back.

"_Let's get fucked up and die._

_For the last time with feeling_

_we'll try not to smile_

_As we cover our heads and drink heavily into the nights_

_That still shock and surprise._

_I believe that I can, _

_overcome this and beat everything in the end_

_But I choose the abuse for the time being,_

_maybe I'll win, but for now I've decided to die."_

Fuck it, he doesn't like the self defeating lyrics that Zoro is throwing out, he's going to pull the other man back even if he has to physically do it himself. He reaches out and snags the edge of Zoro's shirt, startling the other man and making him turn back to him. Zoro's face flashes surprise for a second before running into a gentle smile as he starts the next part of the song.

"_Sister soldier_

_You've been such a positive influence on my mental frame_

_If I could ever repay you, _

_I would, but I'm hard up for cash_

_And my memory lacks initiative._

_God damn the liquor store's closed,_

_we were so close to scoring_

_it hurts, it destroys 'til it kills,_

_I am tired and hungry and totally useless."_

Zoro's guitar carries on for a little while after his last line but even so when he stops he still looks a little too raw, like an open cut, all ragged around the edges with his insides right out exposed in the air. That urge to just... gather Zoro up and... what? Protect him? It's stupid but that's sort of what Sanji's feeling right now.

More relevantly for the expectant look that Luffy is shooting his way he wonders if he's going to feel like that after his song. Because of course he'd be stupid to think that he was going to get out of it now, especially after cutting into Zoro's own song. Where the hell had that come from anyway? He just... did it.

Perhaps Zoro might be right about this whole thing but... what if he blurts out his feelings for Zoro right now? He can't... well... he could. It could be one way of settling this whole should he or shouldn't he issue. Wait, no, that was stupid and reckless.

"Sanji?" Zoro's voice interrupts him. The guitarist is giving him a slightly concerned look and Sanji realises that he's been off in his own little world this whole time.

"I'm not sure about this." he mutters looking away.

Zoro doesn't say anything but when Sanji looks up at him the guilt washes over him. Zoro just dragged him into his soul and it doesn't seem fair for Sanji to just be all 'well, that was interesting, thanks for the ride, bye!' and not at least _try_ to reciprocate.

"You won't know if you can do it or not until you try, but I believe you can!" Luffy chirps from behind the drum kit. Sanji jumps at his words. Goddamnit, he'd forgotten that he was there again! Why is it that the world keeps seeming to shrink just down to him and Zoro? That can't be healthy.

His eyes flick back to the green haired man and his pulse races and his heart lodges itself in his throat. He both wants to do this and doesn't. He wants Zoro to think that he's got talent but he's terrified that if he exposes how he really feels that Zoro might shoot him down.

"Fine. You win but... don't blame me if it sucks." He grumbles, crossing his arms over his chest self consciously.

"It won't suck, the lines you gave me just now didn't." Zoro points out smugly.

"Yeah, yeah." he sighs unconvinced.

"How about this, I play music until something clicks with you, and when it does you go for it. Just... give me whatever's going through your head." the guitarist says with a shrug, as if it's the simplest thing in the world.

He starts to play through various tunes, something slow and sombre though that one doesn't seem to 'click' as Zoro put it. Zoro goes for something more energetic and upbeat and that feels like it fits a little better but not quite right either. Next Zoro plays something steady with a reasonably fast beat to it without sounding too hyper or too dull either. Zoro clearly reads something in his expression because he gives this smug grin and keeps playing.

Sanji chews his lip, his mind spinning at a million miles an hour, he feels like his head is full of bees, buzzing around as a million thoughts ricochet through his brain and no matter how many ideas he has he can't pick some way to start. Zoro's tune is continuing on, waiting for him.

Fuck it, however he starts is going to be stupid. Go with whatever's in his head huh? Well all that's in his head right now is chaos. He may as well go with that.

He groans and shuts his eyes, scrubbing his hands over his eyes as he just... goes for it he supposes.

"_Hello there, how you doin'?_

_I've got all these thoughts just floating through my brain." _

God that is stupid as hell sounding and he just can't stop there. His mouth babbles on.

"_They bump and they collide and cause a flurry of confusion_

_And it's... getting on my nerves_

_I try to hold myself together_

_fighting off this mental weather when I can"_

Well, that got a little better but now he's got to some up with something relevant to weather which he'd only sprung for so it rhymed with 'together'. Zoro takes pity on him and leans in and delivers the next line.

"_sometimes I do," _

Sanji grins, he supposes that's Zoro filling in the silence so it doesn't stretch on too long and cause the song to fall apart, but equally the statement is bland enough to not influence his lyrics. Sanji feels the next words come into mind and lets them out with a sort of perverse pleasure.

"_But this shitstorm's never ending_

_And the atmospheric pressure's calling for rain"_

He pauses for a moment as the reality hits that he's doing this. He's writing a song and singing it at the same time, something he'd sworn blind that he couldn't do. And yet... here Zoro is, pulling this incredible thing from him. To think that he could have not joined this band, not met Zoro. He probably had passed the man in the street before, what with how close they work and yet he'd not known that he could have had this.

No, this is right. He... he needs Zoro as much as Zoro apparently needs him. This is... where he's supposed to be. A flash of Zoro's old lyrics runs through his head and the words come to his lips, challenging Zoro and echoing his previous sentiment.

"_This is what I've got going on,_

_This is where I belong tonight"_

It... it is where he belongs. The world shrinks down to just him and Zoro again as Zoro takes off with his guitar, showing off just how easily he can turn a simple musical pattern into something so amazing.

Sanji pauses and watches Zoro. He watches the play of Zoro's muscles, the bronze of his skin and more importantly he stares at the man who has so rapidly become the centre of Sanji's little world. He wants Zoro but he's terrified of losing him. He can't suppress the conflict within him any more, but he's no idea what he's going to go for. Zoro's guitar pitches down in speed and Sanji knows a cue when he sees it, used as he is now to reading Zoro's music style.

"_It's chaos in the courthouse_

_And the left side's all upset _

_Because the right side wants a summer home_

_and knows we can't afford it_

_I try to mediate between_

_This constant tug-o-war machine_

_But wind up in a never ending game of telephone"_

He manages not to make any overt references to love but only by shoehorning in some arbitrary thing that he's supposedly arguing with himself over (but really, a summer home? What the hell?) He clutches at either side of his head as he feels the crescendo of emotion and almost panic building within him. He stares at Zoro, should he move forward or stay? Should he risk it all for something amazing or stay where he is but forever be wanting?

"_There's so much going on_

_And I just need seven minutes to calm myself back down,_

_Now I forgot where I was_

_Was it me we were talking about?"_

The opening is there for Zoro to come in, to save him from his own ineptitude and rescue him from this emotional disaster of a song. But Zoro shakes his head and continues playing, fixing Sanji with a smile that melts him and makes half of him want to rush forward and kiss the other man and half of him want to run away for fear of change.

"_This is what I feared from the start_

_I keep falling apart!"_

The panic is starting to rise in him. He can't quite stop himself from singing now that the song has begun and instead all he's doing is verbally freaking out. Zoro is starting to look a little concerned for him even, it must be bad.

"_What's going on, is this where I belong tonight?"_

He was wrong, this isn't where he's supposed to be, he's just going to fuck this up! He needs to get out of here.

"_What's going on tonight?" _Zoro's voice kicks in and something in Sanji quiets at seeing Zoro's concerned eyes locked onto him. He stays and repeats his line, still uncertain as to whether this is the best idea or the worst idea, but Zoro stays with him, echoing the complimentary line.

"_What's going on, is this where I belong tonight?"_

"_What's going on?"_

Zoro's eyes are staring right into him, right inside every part of his soul and Sanji can't escape the feeling that Zoro is aware of his emotions right now as Sanji was earlier when he felt plugged into every part of Zoro's feelings.

"I _Can't stand," _Zoro kicks in with another line that immediately makes Sanji respond without thinking.

"_I can't stand the thought of losing-"_

Shit no! Abort! He can't say that he can't stand the thought of losing Zoro! His mouth kicks out the first non Zoro related sentence that comes to mind and apparently his brain is punishing him on account of it making no goddamn sense.

"_Sentences and every island of words"_

Zoro frowns, seemingly sensing the substitution but hopefully not knowing just _what_ it was that Sanji changed. He sings his line in what is apparently now the chorus to their song.

"_Can't stand,"_

"_I can't stand the thought of losing..._

_Everything I ever thought I that I knew"_

Sanji's words are right. He'd thought that he wasn't a songwriter and yet here he is, writing music on the fly. He'd thought that being in a band was a dream that was never going to come true, but he was wrong about that as well. He's not sure that he's in love with Zoro or not but... he wants to find out. So fucking badly. He wants to grab Zoro close and show him just how he feels, to lay out everything and hope to the gods that Zoro will take him.

His insecurities however fire up the mental image of Zoro rejecting him, of him saying no. He feels his mouth tug down sadly and the crease of worry in Zoro's brow deepens and the melody slows a little, matching Sanji's mood. It seems that Zoro can sense his moods then.

He turns from Zoro, the fearful ache in his chest at the idea of losing this, of losing Zoro.

"_This is where I run out of words_

_That describe how I'm so damn hurt_

_This is where I fumble and fold_

_And take what I'm told"_

He continues through the rest of the song, Zoro filling in his parts, earnestly seeming to try to find out what's up with Sanji. Sanji can finish the chorus but he... he can't keep going beyond that.

"_What's going on, is this where I belong tonight?_

_(What's going on tonight)_

_What's going on, is this where I belong tonight?_

_(What's going on tonight)_

_What's going on, is this where I belong tonight?_

_(What's going on tonight)_

_What's going on, is this where I belong tonight?_

_(What's going on)_

_(Can't stand) I can't stand the thought of losing_

_Sentences and every island of words_

_(Can't stand) I can't stand the thought of losing_

_Everything I ever thought I that I knew"_

Sanji steps away from Zoro as the other man's guitar notes hover in the air for a second or two.

"Sanji?" Zoro frowns, reaching for him.

"I have to-" Sanji chokes out a non excuse and dashes past the other man and sprints up the stairs away from him. He just needs to get away.

Sanji gasps, clutching at his hair as he makes a break for the kitchen. He doesn't really know why he goes for the kitchen except perhaps it's the closest space that he regards as his. He really needs to be in his own space right now, he's had Zoro all plugged into his mind and his nerves just then and it's all _too much_.

His system feels overloaded, like plugging something that's supposed to run on batteries right into the mains. He's vibrating with unspent energy and thoughts and his head is simply spinning. Oh god, that connection with Zoro. That... it was as if the other man was part of him! How is it possible to be so connected to someone like that?

It answers his stupid question though. He's in love with Zoro. Absolutely. And nothing terrifies him more than the idea of losing him. He can't... he can't do this!

"Sanji?" Zoro's voice is behind him, close... too close.

"Don't- please." he forces out, his hands clutching at the counter top. Right now half of him is screaming at him that all he needs is Zoro and he needs him like air. This wonderful amazing man has turned him into something wonderful, changed him into the best possible version of himself. Zoro is so perfectly aggravating, he gets under Sanji's skin but he's so secretly sweet, so real and raw that Sanji just wants to keep him there.

There is no part of Zoro that he doesn't want in on and now that his control is at an all time low he's not going to be able to hold back if Zoro-

Zoro's hand falls on his shoulder and the other man pulls him around to face him, Sanji slams his eyes shut and goes over every fucking reason why he needs to have some self restraint. Zoro isn't his boyfriend. Just because Zoro eyed him up doesn't mean that he'll be interested. Zoro might refuse to work with him if he acts on his. He just... he needs to stop.

"Sanji, I know that was intense, I mean I felt... but you gotta talk to me." Zoro says softly and oh fuck, Sanji can feel the warmth radiating off of Zoro from here. He whines in his throat and tries to restrain himself.

Zoro's hand touches the edge of Sanji's jaw, so warm and so careful.

The last of Sanji's self control snaps.

His eyes fly open just long enough to coordinate himself as he pushes off of the counter and at Zoro. He wraps his arms around the guitarist's neck and brings their mouths together forcefully. He kisses Zoro hard, he forces every fucking emotion that he has for the other man into it. He doesn't even have it in him to hold back right now.

Zoro gasps against his lips and his hands come to Sanji's hips. The very fact that he's not being pushed away right now takes the edge off of the fear and desperation and he's able to lean against Zoro properly and kiss him more gently.

Sanji feels rather than hears the moan roll through Zoro's chest as the taller man's mouth opens up against him. Scarcely believing his luck Sanji works his way inside Zoro's mouth, the other man's tongue instantly coming alive against his.

Zoro's hands tighten on Sanji's belt loops and Sanji twines his fingers into Zoro's lush green hair. He whines in his throat as Zoro seems to pull him a little closer against him and leans into the kiss, forcing Sanji back a little.

Zoro must have been moving because Sanji's lower back hits the counter top as Zoro presses him against it and gives just as much into their kiss as Sanji does.

His heart is about ready to explode, all his fears were baseless and his imagination isn't doing justice to what he'd thought kissing Zoro could be like. He feels like he was made for this, he fits perfectly against Zoro's body and as he sighs into the kiss and tilts his head a little for Zoro he decides that he never wants to leave.

He and Zoro pull apart slightly, their breath mingling as they both pant for air. His hands stay on Zoro's neck, delighting in the smooth and muscled feel under his fingertips.

"Oh god that was-" He pants, dizzy with happiness.

"Oh FUCK." Zoro squeaks, leaping back from him suddenly.

That jars Sanji right the fuck out of his happy haze. Zoro is at least two foot away from him now and staring at him with wide horrified eyes as if he can't believe what he's just done.

"No, we... we can't do this." Zoro says, panic running through his tone as he stares at Sanji in terror.

Sanji suppresses the bitter sting of rejection and instead clocks the fear in Zoro's expression. The other man is completely freaking out right now. Why on earth would- ah. Yes, that whole... same gender thing. Right. Zoro hasn't had any experience with that. Sanji forces down his own emotions and tries to be reasonable.

"It's okay, I mean... I get it. You've not kissed a guy before so... you can freak out, it's fine. I shouldn't have leapt on you so quick." Sanji sighs, shutting his eyes as he shoves aside his needy libido which is protesting at the fact that Zoro isn't right here against him right now. The last thing he wants to do is force this issue and make Zoro run away from him. He tries to remember the first time a guy kissed him, he'd flipped out, terrified at finding out that he liked guys and confused and horrified at his own responses. He could have used a little understanding and patience then so the least he could do was offer the same to Zoro.

"I... didn't think of that. Huh." Zoro remarks, touching his lips and staring at Sanji in slight wonder, as if the idea that Sanji was male hadn't occurred to him until Sanji had mentioned it.

"What do you mean 'huh'?!" Sanji squawks in offence.

"No- not that. I don't... apparently care that you're a guy. Which is... interesting, I guess." Zoro remarks distantly. He shakes his head though, apparently saving that conundrum for later. Sanji frowns, so... if not that, then what?

"I just... we really can't do this." the other man says shaking his head and effectively stabbing a barb through Sanji's heart. He could handle Zoro freaking out about kissing a guy for the first time, but to be told no and meant it... why? Zoro had kissed him back hadn't he? He knows he had because it had been _perfect and glorious_.

"Why?" He asks in a small voice.

"I- Sanji, don't..." Zoro whines, stepping closer and reaching for him as if on reflex. He stops himself before he gets to Sanji though and gives him a pained and pleading look.

"We just can't." Zoro says stiffly, glancing away as if he cannot possibly stand to look at Sanji any more.

"Why? If you're going to kiss me back like that and then rip out my heart and tell me no then... couldn't you at least tell me why? Please?" Sanji begs, grabbing Zoro's arm and pleading with him, hoping against hope that Zoro will change his mind.

"Come on, please. Is it because I'm your singer or your muse? Or just because it's too soon after Baby or... what? Just give me a reason." He says, desperately needing an answer here.

The other man's frown deepens and finally he drags his eyes back to Sanji and a look of sympathy flutters across his face.

"I'm not... I'm not single. I've already got someone and she's going to kill me if she finds out that I... that kissed you back like that. Shit." Zoro groans, tangling his hands in his own hair.

Sanji just stares. It takes a stunned second or two for the hurt to kick in but when it does arrive it's as if someone's punched him right in the gut and gone up through his ribs to claw at his heart too.

"BullSHIT! You're not with anyone!" He hisses, hurt that Zoro could lie to him and above all that he could think he was so stupid as to believe such a blatantly false lie. Did Zoro really think so little of him? That hurts even more than the rejection!

"No, I'm not lying Sanji. I really wouldn't. Believe me, I want this... I really... _really_ want this. But I can't just cheat on my girlfriend, I'm not that sort of guy." Zoro answers, running a longing look up and down Sanji's body that, despite his internal pain, sets off a flutter of a heat through his skin and being looked at like that.

"I know it sounds crazy but... I kept it secret because after Baby and I had that fight and she broke up with me and left the band... well... the others were all so stupidly over protective that they'd never let it go. I'm an adult and I should be able to see who I want without getting the third degree about it from my overly meddling friends. So I just... didn't tell anyone." Zoro explains, looking at Sanji with some regret.

Sanji stares at him.

He really doesn't want to believe this. What kind of bullshit is this? A secret girlfriend? It's the shittiest excuse ever for shooting someone down.

But Zoro looks so... remorseful and conflicted about it. His eyes keep sliding back to Sanji and looking at him with such an expression of pure want only to flick back to wrenching his gaze away with an expression of self-loathing that Sanji has no choice but to buy it. Zoro's... he's really not going to date Sanji.

"Fuck." Sanji whines, putting his head in his hands.

His heart aches. He'd thought that he had Zoro, that all of his dreams had come true and that... no. It's too painful to think on. He draws in a shuddering breath and looks back up at Zoro who is looking agonised at this whole thing.

"So... what now? Are you still going to be able to work with me? I mean... I promise to keep my hands to myself. You've said no and you're taken so... I have to respect that. But I can understand if you felt like my idiocy had fucked things up beyond repair. I really don't want to leave but if-" Sanji begins, his voice shaking.

"What? God, Sanji, no! I'm not letting you go! You're perfect, I need you. You're talented and... it's half the reason that I'm attracted to you, why I kissed you back. Everything about you, your voice, your music... I can't just let you go. I mean... if you still want to stay. But... please don't leave just because of this." Zoro adds hastily, a pleading look on his face.

"I... can stay?" Sanji asks hopefully.

"You'll have to go through me if you want to quit." Zoro threatens with a weak, hopeful smile.

"Okay. I can... I can do that." he nods, breathing out carefully.

"I just don't want to know about... whoever she is. It just hurts and I don't- let's just not." Sanji says quickly, holding his hand up. The last thing he wants to hear about now is how great Zoro's secret girlfriend is.

"Fair enough." Zoro agrees with a nod.

"I hope she appreciates you is all because she's stupidly lucky to have you. I'd die to be in her shoes." he adds, a touch bitterly.

"I don't think her shoes would suit you, heels and what have you." Zoro smiles weakly, trying to make him laugh. He fails but he does manage to pull a weak upturn at the edge of Sanji's lips.

"Fuck you man, you don't know what I could make look good." he retorts weakly, hoping to resurrect their usual banter.

"Hey Sanji... I'm sorry, okay? It's stupidly bad timing is all, if it wasn't for this I wouldn't even dream of saying no. I can't quite believe that I am now." Zoro says softly.

"Let's not, okay? I know you're trying to be kind but that really is worse than not saying anything." Sanji mutters as the flash of hurt runs through him. He starts to torture himself, wondering how much sooner he would have had to have made his move to get there first. He doesn't want to go down that mental road.

"Sorry." the other man apologises.

"It's fine." He says dismissively, shoving his hurt feelings down and trying to be the grown up here.

"Look, I'm gonna skip out on making dinner and go out and get drunk and feel sorry for myself, okay? I'll... see you tomorrow." he adds, walking away from Zoro and towards the door.

"Sanji, it's two in the afternoon, on a Tuesday, where are you going to get a drink?" Zoro calls after him.

"My old man owns a bar remember? Later." Sanji calls over his shoulder and lets himself out of the front door. He shuts it behind him and walks to his car. He unlocks the door, climbs inside, turns the engine on and drives off.

A few minutes down the road he finds a good place to stop and pulls over.

Finally alone he lets go of the resistance inside of himself and allows all of his feelings to come crashing back in from where he'd pushed them aside.

He'd risked it all and opened his heart to Zoro only to get shot down. The ache burns deep within him and Sanji has to bite his lip to stop the tears from spilling over. He finally works out that he loves Zoro only to find that a girl has gotten in there before him.

On the plus side Zoro doesn't hate him, they're still going to work together. So it's not as bad as he imagined.

Only now... now he has to contend with the secret knowledge that Zoro has someone else. That there's some lucky girl out there that gets to see Zoro underneath all of his prickly layers and grungy clothes. There's someone out there who Zoro cares for, who he trusts. That someone must have been pretty special for Zoro to risk his heart again after Baby broke up with him, and her bond with him must be strong to not be entirely chased away by Baby's continuing obsession with Zoro and his with her.

Fuck. He really hopes that she knows how lucky she is. She has everything that Sanji wants.

Despite his best attempts at restraining them Sanji feels the hot tears spill down his cheeks anyway.

Songs this time are:

L. - Motion City Soundtrack

Where I belong - Motion City Soundtrack


	10. Chapter 10

Sanji is feeling especially sorry for himself right now, he's kind of kicking himself for not using his last question to find out just who Zoro's girlfriend is. He's swinging between that and not wanting to know at all. On the one hand he really wants to know more about this stupidly lucky girl, but on the other he probably shouldn't. He's so desperate to understand more about her and just what's so special about her that made her so appealing to Zoro that he could get over Baby.

In all honesty it's probably better for him not to know about her. He'll just end up torturing himself about his own flaws and how he compares to her.

"You're really just going to hang out here getting shitfaced then? That's your plan?" Patty challenges him, making a move to take Sanji's vodka away. Sanji is usually a wine or craft beer kind of guy, but right now he will settle for the most efficient path from sobriety to drunkenness.

"Yes, that's my plan." He snaps and pours himself another measure into his cola. After all, even if he is horribly upset he's not going to drink this stuff neat.

"Whatever, man." Patty grumbles and walks off to continue setting up the bar for actual paying customers.

Sanji slides down in his own booth and drinks his drink. He doesn't know if a flat out "sorry I'm not interested" would have been better or worse.

He'd feel pretty deflated if Zoro hadn't liked him at all, and felt really stupid too. There had been hints that Zoro had liked him as well so if he'd just misread all of that because Zoro didn't like him he'd feel pretty foolish. On the other hand though, simply being rejected because you're not the appropriate gender or something isn't really anything personal.

But Zoro does like him back. Zoro hadn't just kissed him back Zoro had pushed things further. It was Zoro who had pressed him up against the kitchen counter and kissed Sanji back until his bones felt like melting. But Zoro wasn't available, though he'd pretty much outright said that he was interested. He wonders if he's going to be able to get over this or if he's going to sit around hoping against hope that Zoro and his mystery girlfriend break up.

He highly suspects that he'll be pining away hoping that the secret girl will suddenly change her mind. It's pathetic but what can he do?

He throws his drink back and pours another, going considerably heavier on the vodka and substantially lighter on the cola.

What does this girl have that he doesn't anyway? He really wants to know. Did she just get there first? Is Zoro even happy with her? He certainly hasn't seemed like he's half of a loving couple, but then he supposes that Zoro's been trying to keep their relationship a secret.

But... at the wedding Zoro was whining that no one loved him and he didn't have a soul mate, which was bullshit because Sanji was _right there_ and he loves him plenty. So... was Zoro actually unhappy with his girlfriend and really bemoaning his lack of love or was he just lying to make Sanji think that he didn't have a girlfriend? It'd be a pretty convoluted lie if it was one. After all it wasn't as if Sanji had pressed about Zoro's love life at all and prompted the other man to play like he was single and lonely.

Fuck why was Zoro so goddamn hard to figure out?

He finishes his newest drink.

He's starting to get a little fuzzy headed as it happens and he ponderously takes out his phone. He stares at Zoro's number and opens up a text message.

Uh. No. Wait, drunk texting or drunk calling Zoro was not only not cool but it was a really bad idea.

He slides the phone across the other side of the table and pours himself a new drink.

So. What is his plan going to be? He's not going to have a problem working with Zoro, that's for sure. He's just happy to have not lost that despite being shot down. It might be a little... difficult to deal with any love songs with him for a little while but he's sure he can manage in the long run.

He runs his finger up and down the condensation on the glass and stares at it. It's late enough now that the Baratie is open to actual customers aside from just himself. The music starts to play, even though it's just from the speakers and not from a live band.

When does Zoro even see his super secret girlfriend then? He knows that Zoro goes off cycling into the night sometimes and he'd just sort of assumed that unless Zoro was cycling to a bar to get drunk or start a fight that he was just... well... either cycling to work or just out enjoying his bike. Perhaps... perhaps sometimes he's off seeing his secret girlfriend.

He wonders how often he sees her. He wonders what she thinks about the fact that she's kept a secret from Zoro's friends. He knows that he wouldn't be okay with that at all. Which isn't to say that he'd make a whole song and dance about going out with Zoro if he was ever so lucky (okay, well now he might make a song about it but that's not the point) but he wouldn't keep it from people. Something as great as love shouldn't be kept hidden.

Maybe, he thinks as he drinks some more, Zoro isn't happy with his girlfriend but perhaps he just has insanely low standards for happy in his relationships. Like 'hey you didn't steal my music and slap me on stage!' constitutes a good relationship. So... perhaps Zoro might see that he's got options, that he's got someone else who genuinely wants him. And perhaps even further Zoro might... maybe... leave his girlfriend for him?

He downs his glass. He is starting to sound pathetic now, even to himself.

Well. Enough of that pathetic self pity, he might be able to get a bus home if he leaves now. But... he might run into Zoro at home and he's not sure what he'd say if he saw him like this. Maaaybe he can just crash in his old room and then go home tomorrow.

On the plus side that means he doesn't need to stay even vaguely sober. Yay!

He considers calling Zoro and looks across the table at his phone. He gathers up the last of his sober sanity and picks the phone up.

He grabs the bottle of vodka, leaving the useless cola on the table and stands up. The world pitches to the right and takes him with it. After several stumbled steps in the wrong direction he reorients himself and heads behind the bar and punches in the code to open up the till.

"OI!" Patty snaps at him but stops when he sees Sanji just drop his phone in the drawer and shut it. Later he'll be either too drunk to remember the code to get in it again, or failing that Patty probably won't let him near it at all. Commending himself for his own underappreciated genius he heads upstairs and into his old man's house.

Zeff is thankfully out tonight, seeing some old friend Patty had said. He half walks and half falls up the stairs, swigging directly from the blessed bottle of vodka as he does so. It occurs to him that this would be an excellent time to sing! He takes a long pull of vodka and launches into a very slurred rendition of "I've got you under my skin" on account of Sinatra is just about the best thing to sing whilst drunk, or even sober. His voice usually goes pretty well with Sinatra, although objectively it's probably a little closer to what it should sound like when he's not completely trashed.

He throws himself down on his old bed and throws his arm over his eyes, the bottle still hanging in his free hand. He bites his lip as he imagines Zoro perhaps telling him that he and his girlfriend have broken up and they can be together now. He knows that he's being pathetic but... he just wants Zoro to see him like that.

He drops the vodka bottle on his night stand and considers what to do now. He could go out to another bar, one he's not vaguely involved in the ownership of. He could go and get drunker and try to talk someone into bed with him. But... he knows inside that it won't make him feel better. Besides, right now he really doesn't need the embarrassment of calling Zoro's name out in bed with someone else, or not being able to go through with it at all.

Even so, and he's sure this doesn't make sense, but he'd feel wrong trying to sleep with someone else. It'd feel... unfaithful somehow. Which is dumb as shit because as was so recently proved to him, Zoro is not only not his boyfriend but also has no intentions of being it any time soon.

The internal debate about whether or not to go out dies immediately, he's just going to go to bed and sleep this off.

The world is aching and spinning when Sanji makes his way into the house, a little lighter the cab fare back as there's no way he was sober enough to drive home safely. He hisses in hung over pain as the cab speeds away on the gravel driveway and he makes his way back up to the house, head aching and cursing his poor choices.

He makes it as far as the kitchen before he's spotted.

"Well, where did you get off to?" Nami asks, spying him on her way into the kitchen. It's just early enough to be breakfast time, as Sanji's phone had woken him up with an alarm to remind him. Or, to be more precise, his phone had woken Zeff up and Zeff had then rather discourteously kicked him out of bed into a self pitying heap.

"Just out, but I couldn't let you make breakfast on your own." Sanji smiles weakly at her and drags himself into the kitchen.

"Are you okay? You look a little pale." Nami questions, eyeing him suspiciously.

"I'm fine, my flower." He flutters weakly for her and very gingerly gets out the frying pan and saucepans for a cooked breakfast. Every time they clank or clatter on the cooker top makes him wince.

"You're hung over!" Nami yelps, pointing at him. Her voice is loud enough to send a sharp needle of pain through his brain.

"So, is Zoro dealing with this as badly as you are then?" she asks, her hands on her hips and a smug little smile on her pretty lips.

Sanji's blood freezes, Nami _knows_?

"What?" He squeaks pathetically.

"The hangover? Or does he not have one at all? Sometimes he's a real bastard like that, he gets trashed with you and then wakes up just fine the next morning, it's not fair." Nami pouts, her lip jutting out cutely. However Sanji is still confused by all that she's said and spending brain power admiring his lovely manager's cute pout is hardly helping.

"Wha?" He mumbles confused.

"Geez Sanji, are you still drunk or something? He went out with you last night didn't he? Where is he?" she frowns at him.

"No, Zoro wasn't with me. I went out on my own. Is... is he not here?" He asks in surprise, realising what Nami must have assumed.

"Oh, no. No he's not. We all just figured that the two of you had gone out together, you know, since you're so close now and everything." Nami smiles with a slightly catlike and devious expression on her face.

"No, sorry." he apologises weakly and goes back to cooking, his mind spinning fast. Where was Zoro last night then? There's the possibility that he went out to drown his sorrows as Sanji himself had, but... but if it were him he'd go to his secret girlfriend and either confess what had happened or try to make it up to her somehow. A small hopeful part of his brain optimistically suggests that maybe Zoro went to go and break up with his girlfriend. He shoves that part away, he doesn't need false hope.

"The two of you do seem to be getting on better than you did at first. It's good that the fighting has stopped." Nami says approvingly, leaning against the kitchen counter and playing with the ends of her hair.

"I'm afraid we still fight plenty, my love. But we're doing much better than we were." he laughs softly and switches the stove on.

"I don't think I would have believed when you two first met that it wouldn't be long before you were all snuggled up on the sofa together asleep." She giggles, effectively turning Sanji scarlet.

"Ah- that was- uh... he just wasn't sleeping so I thought I'd keep him company then... uh..." He stammers, overwhelmed with embarrassment.

"Suuure." She giggles at his discomfort.

Sanji tries to force his blush down and starts cracking eggs into a bowl. He's not sure that he's got enough coordination as hung over as he is to manage to do individual eggs for people, so he thinks that scrambling is the best idea, besides he makes some damn good scrambled eggs. They'll help with the hangover too.

"You ought to ask him out you know. He likes you, I'm sure of it. And don't say that you don't, I see the way you look at him!" Nami overrides him as he tries to protest in flushed mortification.

"I think it's sweet, and I think you'd be good for one another." She adds with a small soft smile. Sanji looks at her open mouthed and tries to suppress the flash of hurt that runs through him. He'd thought that he could be good for Zoro too, and he knows how much Zoro has brought out the best in him. But... Zoro turned him down. But it's not as if they know about Zoro's secret girlfriend either. If only she wasn't so secret then maybe he could have been spared having to bare his feelings to Zoro only to be shot down. If he'd known that Zoro was with someone before... if he'd been open about it then perhaps Sanji could have lived with just longing for him without expectation.

But he hadn't known, and neither does anyone else. So they were all trying to help him, and they were right that Zoro was attracted to him too, or he seemed to be from what he said and the way that he'd kissed Sanji back. A rush of excited static runs over his skin at the memory.

He realises that Nami is still looking at him and it's been some time since either of them spoke. He shakes his head, letting more of his hair slide forward into his face to hide his expression a little as he cooks.

"You're not the first person to give me that kind of advice." Sanji sighs, looking at the eggs and stirring them as a wave of melancholy washes over at him.

"So you ought to. He'll say yes, I'm sure!" she encourages him with a pat on his shoulder.

"I... no." he says shaking his head.

"Why not? I know you like him, so do it! We were hoping that you might take the initiative yourself but I think you need a little nudge." Nami says, her face taking on that cunning catlike smile that he usually loves too much. Not quite so much now though.

"Nami, don't..." Sanji sighs, closing his eyes.

"Do it or I'll ask him out on your behalf." She threatens with a grin.

"Please don't, he won't say yes. Just leave it, please Nami." He begs her, looking over at her and taking his eggs off of the heat so that they don't singe.

"Oh Sanji, don't be a chicken, you don't know what he'll say until you ask, and I'm telling you-" She begins.

"That's how I know! He... he said no. So please... just... stop." Sanji forces out, squeezing his eyes shut and pinching the bridge of his nose to try to distract himself from the tension and upset. He's always been a reasonably emotional guy when it comes to matters of the heart, but when he's as invested as he is with Zoro... well... it still hurts.

Nami looks stunned at this revelation, so much so that she's silent with her mouth slightly open for a second or two.

"You... you asked him out and he said no?" she asks in numb surprise.

"Yes." he answers reluctantly.

"Oh, I'll _strangle_ him! He likes you! Why would he- why did he say no?!" Nami yells in frustration. Sanji tries to shush her, it's bad enough that he's had to tell her, but he really doesn't want the whole house hearing. Moreover this would be a stupidly bad time for Zoro to walk in and hear them, and knowing his luck Zoro would.

They hadn't exactly talked about keeping the whole thing quiet, but the fact that Zoro had chosen to keep his girlfriend a secret rather implied that Zoro would be more than just a little annoyed at him outing him on that. Even so, he needs to say something or else Nami is going to go and try to force them together.

"He just said he couldn't. I'd really rather not go into it, but it's not his fault, don't worry about it." He mumbles, turning over the sausages under the grill, they look nearly done.

"I can't imagine why he'd- ugh. He really needs to get over Baby, I hate the fact that she's ruining his life even though she's gone!" She says, her hands on her hips irritably.

She casts her gorgeous brown eyes up at him with a sad little expression, one that looks far too close to pity for Sanji's comfort.

"I'm really sorry Sanji, maybe he'll come around." She says gently, touching his shoulder.

"Yeah." He hums softly, not really wanting to talk about it at all. He stares into the pan and adds the mushrooms to fry.

"Okay... well... call me when breakfast is ready, okay Sanji?" the beautiful red head frowns, sounding a little put off by Sanji's lack of response.

"Of course, my mellorine." he promises, though nowhere near as enthusiastically as he normally might.

Nami leaves him then and Sanji cooks a solid breakfast, plenty of eggs, sausages, toast, tea and coffee. He makes fried mushrooms, somewhat glad for Usopp's lack of presence because nothing makes the quick fingered keyboard player bitch like mushrooms. Any attempt Sanji ever makes at serving them is met with complaint by him and Zoro always seems to end up with extra mushrooms sneakily applied to his plate via Usopp. Not that Zoro seems to mind of course, he actually eats all of his food without complaint and-

Goddamnit. Why is he constantly thinking of Zoro?! Well, it's no mystery as to why, really. He's in love with the other man. All the same, he's been turned down and it won't help his heart to heal if he constantly keeps thinking of the green haired man, like poking at a still healing wound.

He has enough time to briefly wonder how that cut on Zoro's nose is healing before he catches himself and silently reprimands his own mind for thinking of him _again_.

He has the forethought to prepare a lunch platter and places it within the fridge for his friends to help themselves to, along with a helpful note on the fridge door to explain. It's easy for them to see as he places all of the lunch platter's parts onto the one central shelf and sticks a post-it on that too.

He serves up breakfast and eats his portion without any real joy for it, he stays out of the conversation that the others are having, paying so little attention that by the time he gets up and begins to clean up he can't even remember what it was that the others were discussing. Zoro of course was absent, that no doubt would have held his attention.

After the cleaning is all done he drags his carcass up the stairs, cursing the number of flights that he has to go up. He goes into his room, kicking the door shut and strips as his headache bangs behind his eyes and his heartbreak throbs in his chest. He throws himself into his own bed and decides to try to sleep them both off. With the luxury of lunch already taken care of he allows himself to drop into a deep sleep.

When he wakes up it is late afternoon going on early evening. Zoro is back and inside the music studio. He's not playing though, surprisingly. Instead the guitarist is sitting uncharacteristically straight in Chopper's desk chair, writing in a notepad on the table.

He has Chopper's expensive headphones on and he's flicking around on the computer listening to something and occasionally stopping to make notes, switching from different colour pens as he does so. Sanji lurks silently in the doorway for a few moments, just watching. Zoro would usually have heard him by now but Sanji knows just how well those headphones block out noise as Chopper uses them sometimes just to tune Luffy's cacophony out.

Zoro is wearing a thick black woollen jumper, with long chewed up sleeves that come to his knuckles. His hair is scruffy, or scruffier than usual anyway. The anxious energy that he was carrying around before seems to be gone but in its place seems to be a kind of... dullness. That's the only way that Sanji can describe it, dullness; as if Zoro's shine has been scrubbed off of him. Almost like the man over there is merely someone pretending to be Zoro.

He hesitates about whether to let Zoro know that he's there or whether to simply leave. He doesn't want to set a precedent for avoiding Zoro, he still wants to be in the band with him but... he doesn't want to make a fool of himself again either. The decision is made for him when Zoro catches a glimpse of him in his peripheral vision and looks around with a slightly surprised look.

"Hey." Zoro says quietly, looking at him carefully.

"Hey." He echoes, leaning against the door frame, although in truth he's actually more hiding behind it slightly, almost as if he was Chopper. The kid does that sometimes when he's nervous; it's kind of sweet really.

"Still hung over?" Zoro smirks at him, grinning to slowly reveal a flash of perfectly white and slightly too pointy teeth. Zoro looks like he could bite right into him, and... okay, no, why is his sex drive taking that thought and running with it? Bad. No.

"Get fucked. What are you even doing anyway?" He asks conversationally throwing out the insult and continuing on.

"Transcribing, Nami and Luffy are all insistent about having everything written down and documented, you know, after..." Zoro trails off and just lets that sentence hang there in the air.

"After Baby stole half of your songs you mean?" Sanji says flatly, not feeling particularly magnanimous towards the source of his hangover right now.

"Yeah, asshole, after that." Zoro responds with a glower.

"So what... oh." Sanji trails off, leaning over Zoro's shoulder he sees his own words on the paper and he realises that Zoro's been sitting here listening to the recording of him singing. A shudder of stupid excitement runs down Sanji's spine, it's stupid because Zoro has just told him why he's doing it but some stupid wishful fantasist part of Sanji's pathetic brain suggests the idea that maybe Zoro is thinking of him, regretting saying no, or maybe he's running over that perfect kiss in his mind as much as Sanji is. Maybe all of that was true and he'd come down to listen to Sanji sing just to get a fix of him or something.

He shakes his head. No, that's a dumb idea. Zoro just has to record what they did is all. Musically, he means.

Zoro is literally only half paying attention to him, with headphones on one ear and off of the one closest to him. He leans forward a little, grumbles under his breath and straightens up again, god he's fidgety today. His pen taps on the paper and he tilts his head thoughtfully for a second or two and then scrawls down some notes in green guitar tablature that clearly mean something to him.

"I'm gonna need Usopp to look over this when he comes back, for any keyboard work. Then we'll need to properly record... Nami's going on about a new album from all the new material." Zoro says to him, not looking up from the paper but tilting his head in Sanji's direction so that Sanji knows that he's talking to him.

"When is he back anyway? Lucky bastard going to Hawaii of all places with his new wife." Sanji huffs bitterly, simultaneously happy for Usopp's love life and envious of it too.

"Tell me about it." Zoro chuckles in a tone low enough to spark some interest from Sanji's nervous system.

"Why does he get to have everything?" Sanji pouts, sinking low in his chair and kicking his feet up onto Chopper's desk. He's feeling especially childish right now.

"Cause he met the love of his life who just so happened to be loaded and married her, the rest of us just have to do without. If Chopper sees you with your feet on his desk he will literally rip your tongue out you know." Zoro adds, flicking a glance at him.

Sanji pokes said tongue out at Zoro whilst the other man scribbles something else down on the paper and un-pauses the recording once more. Sanji squints at Zoro thoughtfully, that's the second time Zoro's said something like that about Usopp. About how his friend has found the love of his life and Zoro... well... hasn't. At the wedding Zoro had sounded lonely and miserable, unloved even. That had all made sense when Sanji had thought that he was alone and had been since Baby. But with this new and secret girlfriend that wasn't the case, so why was he sounding like that? Was he unhappy with his girlfriend?

Sanji doesn't know if he wants Zoro to be unhappy with his girlfriend or not. On the one hand if he is Zoro might realise that he's got a better offer in the form of Sanji, but it would rather hurt to have been turned down by Zoro for someone he doesn't even like all that much. But... well... if Zoro is only being... what... theoretical about all of this then it means that he is happy with his girlfriend and Sanji doesn't stand a chance of being with Zoro any time soon.

Of course... his girlfriend might see all of those pictures and tweets from the others theorising that the two of them were either desperate for each other or perhaps even shortly about to get together. Maybe that would make her leave him and then he could have Zoro all to- no. No no no. That was a shitty line of thought and he shouldn't even entertain it. Aside from serving to get his hopes up _again_ he didn't really want Zoro to get ditched by some ungrateful girl again, not after the hurt that Baby caused, and more so he hardly wants to be the catalyst for that. Zoro probably wouldn't think of him too favourably if he was. He really wants Zoro to like him, not to think of him as the infuriating blonde that ripped his relationship apart.

"Oi, Earth to curly brow." Zoro says, snapping Sanji out of his self pitying stupor.

"Uh?" He gawps, eloquent as ever.

"I _said_ that he's back in four days, and I asked you what you thought of the drums Luffy did for your song. How much of a lightweight are you to still be this hung over?" Zoro accuses faintly.

"I'm not a lightweight, I just wasn't listening to you on account of how boring your dumb ass is. And I don't really remember the drums, I was kind of preoccupied by apparently being able to write at all, let alone write and sing at the same time." He points out reasonably and kicks Zoro in the ankle for insulting him, somewhat less reasonably.

"I told you that you could do it." Zoro grins smugly, in a suffocating air of self congratulatory jerkiness. Stupid Zoro.

"For the record, you're an ass and I hate you." he points out flatly.

"Uh-huh." the guitarist retorts unconvinced and then stuffs the giant headphones on Sanji's head, bending his ear uncomfortably as he does so. Sanji hisses and sets them right whist Zoro queues up the song. The headphones are remarkably soft and soundproof; he can see why Chopper likes them.

Zoro plays the song. It's obviously missing most of the instruments since it was just him, Zoro and Luffy when they recorded but still. His voice comes through crystal clear, perfect through the headphones and even putting all ego aside the sound of his voice comes through perfectly in his ears and makes all the hair on the back of his neck stand up and his skin break out in goosebumps.

"Oh my god... my voice." He breathes in wonder. He can't hear anything outside the headphones and Zoro seems to know this as the green haired man flashes him a genuinely bright and pleased smile.

Sanji's eyes flutter closed as he listens. His voice has never sounded like this, sure he's always known that he was good, and he's heard himself recorded before but that was years ago. He's not actually heard any of the new songs that he's recorded with the band as Chopper is slightly infuriatingly precious about not letting anyone hear them until he's perfected his editing. But this... this is raw and his voice is so much better than he ever knew. He's sure that it's not just the headphones or Zoro's guitar, he's better than he used to be, way better.

How has he gotten this good? He opens his eyes again and sees Zoro and instantly knows. Zoro has made him better. Competing with Zoro, trying to keep up with him, trying to impress him, listening to his feedback... all of it has improved his skills, apparently to an incredible degree. He's improved more in the short months that he's known Zoro than he has in years before. At the Baratie he'd been coasting for some time, the performances had stopped challenging him and whilst learning the new lyrics and pulling them off was always interesting it hadn't been challenging him. Zeff must have known that, it must have been why he kicked him out. Shit, he owed the old man a thank you and Zoro too.

He stares at Zoro, his mouth slightly open as he only barely manages to focus on the drums. He loves Zoro more than he did before, he's just... amazing for him. No one else challenges him like this, pushes him just right and goads him into being better whilst trusting what he can do even if Sanji himself doesn't believe that he can do something. But Zoro does believe in him, trusts him.

The song finishes and Zoro pushes the headphones off of Sanji's head, his fingers sort of combing through Sanji's hair as he does so.

"Wow." He breathes, looking at Zoro. A flush flashes across the other man's cheeks and he pulls his hand back and looks away suddenly.

"I've never really heard myself like that." Sanji adds, trying to make it clear that he was talking about the recording rather than his revelation that Zoro is the best thing ever for him or that Zoro just kind of petted him there. A thought flashes through him that Zoro could be the love of his life, it's kind of early (and kind of one sided) to call it, but... he's just so perfect.

"Well, get used to it." Zoro shrugs, staring down at his paper.

"The drums sounded fine to me, what do you think Franky will do with bass?" Sanji questions instead of saying anything about his theories of Zoro maybe being the love of his life.

"Nh, no idea. Gonna have to get him down here and get him to listen to it and play through in order to work it out." Zoro shrugs.

"I could get him if you like, we could go through it now." Sanji offers cheerfully, he's determined to make this as normal as possible. After seeing just how much he owes Zoro for all of his progress, the last thing he wants is for Zoro to think that they can't work together.

"Okay." Zoro says, looking up at him slightly surprised.

Sanji goes to fetch Franky, and ends up bringing everyone, well except the lucky bastard that is Usopp of course. Chopper is a little horrified that they were listening to their recordings without him working on them first, but Nami overruled him as Zoro was following her rules and documenting their work by writing it down.

They settle into their usual places within the studio, somewhere that had felt so nerve wracking the first time now feels... well... feels like where he's meant to be. He watches as Zoro carefully slides his guitar on. Unlike usual though he seems uncomfortable and Sanji wonders anxiously if Zoro can't quite bring himself to be open with Sanji and play, not after he'd kissed him. Zoro shifts from foot to foot and adjusts his guitar as if he can't quite feel right. After a few long moments of this he huffs, takes the guitar off and disappears, to the puzzlement of everyone else in the room.

"Oi Zoro, where... okay... just leave..." Franky mutters as Zoro breezes out of the room and up the stairs. They all stay in their respective places in confusion for a little while and by the time that they're starting to really wonder if Zoro is coming back, the other man returns. Zoro's carrying one of Sanji's breakfast bar stools in one hand and bringing it down.

Zoro comes into the studio again and dumps the high bar stool right where he would usually stand on his side of their shared microphone. Wordlessly Zoro walks back to his guitar, retrieves it and eases himself onto the bar stool. He lodges one foot high up on the rungs of the bar stool and rests the dip in his guitar's body on his thigh, leaving the other to be supported by his arm.

"Comfortable now?" Robin teases from her place on the other side of the glass. Zoro rolls his eyes at her.

Sanji eyes Zoro, he's never ever seen the other man sit down like this and play. He's seen him sprawled across his bean bag and playing but only very occasionally, even then his feet and legs were moving. Zoro can't ever play still, he nearly fell over all the time when Nami taped his feet to the floor, he's a natural fidgeter. But now he's perched on the bar stool, still and careful as if he doesn't want to move. Sanji doesn't know why but it sets his teeth on edge.

They run through Sanji's song several times and it sounds better each time. Though each performance lacks the out of control panic and emotion that he felt when he originally wrote it, he can still remember what it felt like and he can still put that into his words. Interestingly though Zoro spends the entire time watching him when he plays, Zoro's playing is flawless as always but something about how he's holding himself seems off.

Several practices later Zoro's back suddenly snaps straight and he gives a startled yelp. Zoro inches forward off of the chair and pulls his phone out of his back pocket. He stays, half on and half off the chair as he silently reads his phone.

"Oi, what happened to the no phone in the studio rule?" Luffy pouts, pointing a drumstick at Zoro accusingly.

"Luffy's right, Zoro, put it away!" Nami orders him over the microphone from the control room to the side, her pretty eyes watching him intently, though Zoro doesn't really seem to be paying attention.

"I gotta go." He says instead, pulling his guitar off of his shoulder.

"What? Where to?" Franky asks in surprise, eyeing Zoro over his sunglasses.

"Work, the espresso machine is broken. I got to go." Zoro mutters and stands up, quickly taking his guitar off and fleeing from the room.

"They need a proper engineer in there to look at that thing, it's forever breaking." Franky grumbles, setting his bass in its stand and running fingers through his blue coiffed hair in irritation.

"Why don't you go and fix it for good Franky? You're good with machines!" Luffy exclaims, wide eyed with his apparently clever solution.

"Not those kind of machines, though if it keeps dragging Zoro back all the time like it does then I might just go take a look see just to see what's wrong with the damn thing." the mechanic nods wearily.

"I suppose that's the price of being an independent business though, there's no corporation to buy you new equipment, if you can't afford it you just repair and make do." Robin notes wisely.

"Yeah but when it breaks that often..."

Sanji tunes the debate about the merits of small business ownership out. He can't really hear it over his internal thoughts anyway. His mind is looping on two words over and over again.

_Secret girlfriend. Secret girlfriend. Secret girlfriend. _

Zoro was disappearing suddenly on an errand which no one could really keep him from. He would be out for an unspecified amount of time and no one would question it. Zoro was definitely seeing his girlfriend.

Sanji's heart aches and he doesn't resist his feet when they pull him out of the room and upstairs. Zoro is already gone, the other man wastes no time it seems. Sanji is already at the garage door before he manages to get a grip of himself.

What the fuck is he doing?

He can't just follow Zoro. For one thing Zoro would almost certainly notice him, for another it is none of his goddamn business if Zoro is indeed seeing his secret girlfriend. He wants Zoro so goddamn bad but _stalking him_ is not a sensible or sane way to deal with that.

He releases his grip on the garage door and goes back into the house.

He makes his way into the kitchen and leans his head against the cool metal of the fridge door. He wants to know just who he lost Zoro to, just who was so special. Or indeed if they are special to Zoro, with the kinds of things he's saying about love right now Sanji is all turned about and uncertain about what Zoro feels for his girlfriend. But it's not his place to know. He gets a glass from the cupboard and fills it with water, he should get into the habit more of drinking after singing, it's just a good way to take care of his... voice...

His thoughts trail off as he stares at the keys on the opposite counter. They are Zoro's keys. He can tell because they're filled with keys to the coffee shop and the machines in it, it has Zoro's bottle opener and a green pom-pom on it that Robin apparently gave him with it. Sanji knows because he's teased Zoro before about having a mini-Zoro on his keychain.

Zoro has left without his keys, he won't be able to get back in the house without them.

Is it stalking if he's just trying to find the other man to return his keys to him? Perhaps Zoro left them there as an invitation for him to follow him? Perhaps Zoro wants him to come?

Or, perhaps Zoro just forgot his keys and wouldn't appreciate Sanji stalking him on that kind of shitty excuse.

...well.

Keys in hand Sanji is in his car before he can think better of it. He pulls out and onto the gravel driveway and gives the keys on his passenger seat one last glance. There's every possibility that he might not find Zoro, he doesn't know where his girlfriend lives or how long it takes to get there. Perhaps he ought to see it like fate; if he finds Zoro then he was meant to, if he doesn't then he wasn't.

He pulls off, turning right out of their driveway on instinct. He turns right at the next corner and then decides to take a narrower cut through to the side, it's dirt road here and Sanji might be imagining it but he thinks that he sees cycle tracks in the mud here and there.

He drives slowly, keeping an eye out for Zoro and his bike, driving in aimless directions simply hoping to come across the other man. After about twenty minutes of this fruitless driving frustration Sanji is ready to give up his stupid search and go home.

That's when he sees the bike.

Zoro's bike, metallic green and black ditched on the lawn by the wall of someone's house. Sanji pulls up and looks at it. It certainly looks like Zoro's bike but it could be someone else's...

He gets out of his car and shuts and locks it behind him. He walks towards the house. It's a reasonably sized house, two floors and looks perfectly ordinary. There's a garage off to the left and a garden off to the right as this house is right on the corner. He walks nervously to the front door, maybe he should just knock and give Zoro his keys back. What would Zoro say if he knew that he'd followed him? He certainly wouldn't be pleased.

But... a part of him just wants to see just who he got turned down for. He drops his hand and walks around the side of the building curiously peeking in windows, but he doesn't see anyone. He's about to turn back when he hears a pretty voice.

"So it's next month." She says from an upstairs window.

"I know, are you excited? I'm sure you'll do great." Zoro's voice floats down out of the open window, perking Sanji's ears up.

"I could just do without all the bullshit criticism you know? It makes me so angry, everyone judging me like that!" The woman says, her voice stressed and irritated.

Sanji rounds the building, they're talking from the floor above. Thankfully there's a tree nearby which, entirely ignoring his conscience and scruples, he climbs right up. He can see Zoro's back to the window and a woman on the other side, but with Zoro in the way he can't get a good look at the woman lucky enough to be with Zoro. He does manage to see Zoro wrap his arms lovingly around her and bury a kiss in her hair. He's murmuring softly to her and Sanji feels sick. He doesn't know why this was a good idea, seeing the one he wants with someone else.

"What are you stupid?!" The woman snarls and shoves Zoro away hard.

Sanji's jaw just drops. He can see her now and he instantly recognises her, with her curled dark hair and angry eyes. It's Baby, the singer who left them, the one who broke up with Zoro and the band by nearly smacking Zoro's face right off his skull on stage. Though evidently the break up wasn't permanent!

"Of course their opinion matters, you useless ass! It's them that decide how well the tour is received! They decide how well my career goes, or don't you care?!" She shouts, shoving him again. Zoro goes with it, letting her shove put him a few paces away from her. He holds up his hands defensively.

"Of course I care. It's just they don't get to see you for that long, they don't know how good you really are. I know, so don't let them get to you, they'll come around." Zoro says soothingly, making Sanji feel sick with jealousy.

"Well that would be a hell of a lot easier if you were with me like you were supposed to be. When are you going to ditch that stupid little band of yours and work with me again?" Baby demands with a glare.

Sanji gasps and his hackles rise. He can barely wrap his mind around the idea of Baby and Zoro still being together as that's such a mindfuckingly bad idea that he can scarcely think about it all at once. But well... if she makes Zoro happy then... he tries to bring himself to think that it's okay if Zoro is happy but he can't. He can't because a) it's not okay, Baby shouldn't be with Zoro and Zoro deserves so much better than her and b) he's not sure Zoro _is _happy with her.

"Please don't do this Baby, we've talked about this before and it never goes well. Let's just... not. Please?" Zoro pleads. The scowl stays on Baby's face and Sanji watches as the guitarist gently reaches for her, his hand ghosting over her arm.

"It's just stress about the show, come on let's just-" Zoro starts softly.

"Don't patronise me!" Baby hisses, snatching her arm away.

"Leave that fucking band of losers and get back where you belong, I'm done tolerating this shit! Especially since you let them get a new singer, like they could just replace me! You're so useless that you couldn't even make him quit when I ordered you to!" Baby snarls at him.

"I tried- but everyone likes him so much and he's really talented and-" Zoro apologises. Sanji's eyes are the size of saucers, _she_ was the one who'd been driving Zoro's obsession to get rid of him? It explains why he was so hot and cold about it, how he seemed like he liked him at the time and that he didn't want him to go but kept trying to make him anyway. He was just following orders.

"I DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT! THEY CAN HAVE HIM! Just quit!" Baby shouts furiously, her eyes are blazing and even from Sanji's vantage point on the tree branch he can see that this isn't Amélie with her soft words, this is Baby and she means business.

"Baby..." Zoro says, quiet and pleading, his hands are halfway between them, half reaching for her but not quite making it, as if he doesn't know what reaching out and touching her will do.

"Don't! You leave them, you leave him too! Don't think I don't hear about the two of you. You're writing with him too? You're creating live with him after you swore you just couldn't do it anymore, when you tried to convince me that it wasn't me! Suddenly you're able to do it with _him_!" She hisses, her eyes both hurt and angry.

Sanji remembers being told that Zoro couldn't ever write and play and sing at once with her. A smug flash lights up the inside of Sanji's chest, maybe Zoro can do it with him because he's never broken Zoro's heart. He watches them and sees just how on edge Zoro looks; he's not surprised Zoro can't write with her, if he's always this tense around her then of course he couldn't.

"I can't-" Zoro starts, but no sooner have the words left Zoro's lips than Baby's hand snaps out lightning fast and smacks Zoro so hard that Sanji can feel the noise it makes reverberate in his chest. The blow is hard enough to stagger Zoro and bend him to the side, facing the window as it happens. Sanji should probably get the hell out of the way in case either of them sees him but he's simply too stunned to move. He's never seen or heard anyone get slapped that hard. In fact he can see that it was hard enough to split Zoro's lip.

Zoro has his eyes squeezed shut thank god and he watches in horror as the man works his jaw once and straightens up.

Sanji is stuck frozen to the branch, not knowing if he should do something or escape or even what. He's just there, staring. His brain is stuck on some kind of error, he can't quite process what he's seen. Not until Zoro's tongue comes out of his mouth and gingerly runs over his bleeding lip. For some reason it's that which kick starts Sanji's mind again.

How DARE she slap him?! Let alone that hard! It's almost as bad as the time he saw that video online! Well, maybe they're breaking up now. Good. Zoro's too good for her, crazy bitch. She's standing and looking at Zoro with crazed eyes and Zoro hasn't quite stood upright just yet. Slowly he does, his eyes shut until he's facing Baby and then he opens them.

"Don't do this." Zoro says so quietly that Sanji almost doesn't hear him.

"You don't get to tell me what to do. You said you can't leave but you mean you won't, don't you!" Baby snarls at him, her eyes burning with accusation.

Zoro is still and Sanji is begging inside for Zoro to react and leave, to storm out with anger at being attacked, to do something. But Zoro just stands there.

"Answer me!" She demands, snatching up a vase from the table threateningly, this time Zoro backs a little closer to the window.

"Please Baby, put that down, you'll be angry if you break it. Just... just calm down, I'm sorry." Zoro apologises, edging away from her a little more. Though what it is that Zoro possibly has to apologise for Sanji has no idea.

"Tell me you'll leave that useless band and join mine!" Baby shouts, her rage and the hefty crystal vase in her hand frightening Sanji. Sanji's wide eyes flick to Zoro, what's he going to say?

"No." The word is so quiet as it leaves the guitarist's mouth but he may as well have screamed it for the affect it had.

Baby screams like a wildcat and hurls the vase at Zoro's head. The other man only ducks just in time and finds himself covered in a rain of broken glass as the vase explodes against the wall.

Sanji leaps from the tree and lands on the ground. Fuck, this is bad, this is really bad. He should do something, he has to! Zoro could get seriously hurt if he doesn't! But what? Should he call the cops, should he just go up there and defend Zoro himself?

The window above Sanji slams shut as Zoro is thrown against it. He can't hear what Zoro is saying but he can make out that the man is apologising. It evidently doesn't work as he sees Baby's fist fly. Zoro's head snaps to the side as it connects and Sanji's heart seizes.

Blood spatters across the inside of the window, brilliant ruby red as the light from inside shines through it. He stares up, mouth agape, just taking in the expression on Zoro's face. The other man is hurt, physically obviously but clearly emotionally too. Baby is screaming something at him, she hauls him inwards and slams him back against the window again, making it rattle as she yells in his face.

Zoro shakes his head and says something, his left hand presses against the window, smearing in his own blood.

Sanji covers his mouth, not certain if he's going to scream or not.

She's hurting him, she's really hurting him! What... what should he do? If he tries to go in there and stop them then Zoro will know that he followed him and well... he knew Zoro wouldn't be happy before if he'd caught him sneaking around after him. He can see Zoro being even less pleased now, no doubt the other man doesn't want him knowing about this.

Baby's hand snags in the front of Zoro's shirt and she puts all her weight into flinging him away, a crash comes from inside the house and Sanji has no idea what Zoro just hit but it sounds hard and painful. He needs to stop this!

"Now look what you made me do!" Baby shouts from inside, loud enough to be heard through the glass.

Sanji panics and reaches into his pocket for his phone, should he call the cops? Should he climb back up and take a picture as evidence for them? But what if they don't get here in time and she seriously damages Zoro? All it would take would be one serious injury to Zoro's hands and his music career could be over!

He should go in there!

He shoves his phone away again and dashes to the front of the house. He nearly trips over Zoro's bike on his way around. He catches his balance and stares down at Zoro's beloved bike. Despite all its scrapes Zoro would be upset to lose it and if he drags Zoro out of here without it then who knows what Baby will do to it to get revenge?

He picks up the bike and wheels it quickly to his car, thankful for one of the first times ever that it's actually closer to a flatbed truck than it is a car. He throws the bike in the back and runs back to the house. Something else smashes inside and Sanji bangs his fists on the door in desperation. No one comes and Sanji can still hear shouting and smashing inside.

He fists his hands into his hair and freaks out more. Should he kick the door in or something? What's... what's he supposed to do in this situation?

There's a slam from around the back of the building where Sanji was before and a rustling thump. Sanji rushes to the corner of the building to see Zoro drop from the tree by one arm. Zoro leapt out of the window to escape!

"GET BACK HERE, YOU USELESS BASTARD!" Baby screams after him as Zoro sprints off across her lawn and off into the night.

"Fuck!" Sanji curses and hauls ass back to his car, throws himself inside and speeds off in his direction. It doesn't take him long to find Zoro walking by the side of the road.

Zoro is... an utter mess. In the glare of Sanji's headlights he can see that there's a huge amount of blood streaming down from Zoro's nose and mouth, he looks like something from a horror movie.

"Get in the car." He says, leaning over and throwing the door open. Zoro looks surprised to see him for a second but then he shakes his head.

"I'm fine, it's nothing." Zoro says thickly, blood clotting his speech.

"If this is nothing I'd hate to see what something is. Get in, I've got your bike." Sanji orders sternly.

The other man hesitates a little more but edges towards the door, he leans around the edge and peers into Sanji's pick up warily.

"I don't want to bleed on everything. Just give me my bike and I'll get home." He says quietly.

"Goddamnit Zoro, you're hurt, I don't care about my upholstery now get IN!" He snaps hysterically. This time Zoro does.

He climbs in and immediately pulls his sleeves up over his hands and presses them into his bleeding face. The collar of Zoro's big soft woollen top is ripped up and damaged. Sanji would guess that it was either from Baby holding him by it as she punched him in the face or perhaps Zoro ripped it in his escape. Holy shit that actually happened, how was that real? Zoro gingerly presses it to his face before twisting to buckle himself in. Sanji pulls away and tries to focus on driving. Sanji doesn't really need to tell Zoro that he saw, it's pretty obvious after all.

"Please don't tell anyone." Zoro's voice is oh so quiet yet it rips through Sanji like a knife, leaving his nerves raw and fizzing.

He looks over at Zoro in the dim light of the cab and the street lights above. There is still blood running freely from his nose and a nasty looking split on his lip which seems to be swelling shut. His eyes are dark and desperate and it makes Sanji's insides ache to see him, though in a thoroughly unpleasant way and nothing like the pleasant ache of arousal he usually got from Zoro. No, this was the ache of seeing someone you love hurt and knowing you can't undo it.

"Please." Zoro repeats begging him now.

"Is it always like that? This... This isn't the first time is it?" He asks, already knowing the answer to the second question.

"It's none of your business cook! Just swear you won't tell anyone!" he snaps before cursing and pressing his sleeve to his face again as another stream of blood floods from his nose.

"Fuck it, no. I'm cashing in my question, the one where you have to give a straight answer, no matter what remember? Now answer me, how often does this happen?" Sanji demands, pulling over by the side of the road, there's no way he can focus on this and drive at the same time.

"What?" Zoro says, muffled through his sleeve.

"You heard me. Talk. You're a man of your word aren't you?" Sanji says, brokering no compromise here.

Zoro's eyes widen at Sanji's merciless goading. His expression turns to a scowl and he pulls his sleeve away from his face, a trickle of blood comes from one half of his nose and the rest of the lower half of his face is stained in red as Zoro glares at him. It's a truly horrifying look but he won't back down. Zoro seems to sense this and breaks eye contact with him, turning properly to face forward and leaning back in his seat with a pained groan and closing his eyes.

"Well?" Sanji prompts.

"I'm _thinking_ about it! I don't exactly schedule this shit in you know! I don't look at my calendar and see it's the fifteenth and go 'oh, it's my bi-weekly appointment to get the shit kicked out of me by my girlfriend!' it fucking varies okay?!" Zoro snarls back at him with a glare.

"So give me a rough idea, talk me through it." Sanji says, almost pleading.

Zoro shuffles in his seat and glances out of the window as if he wants to be anywhere but in this car having this conversation.

"Well, obviously she's not here all of the time, she's off touring a lot. So... there's that. Look, she's okay sometimes, if I don't make her angry then-" Zoro starts but Sanji can't help but cut in.

"Wait- what?! This isn't your fault Zoro, this isn't because you pissed her off, that's not okay! You piss me off daily but I've never felt the need to break your face, that's not alright!" He yelps in horror.

"That's different." Zoro mutters but helpfully doesn't explain how.

A horrifying idea occurs to Sanji.

"Those... those bar fights you get in and the bike accidents. They're..." He trails off wide eyed.

"I've never been in a bar fight in my life." Zoro mumbles quietly and doesn't look at Sanji.

Sanji's heart does this awful stutter stop thing and he remembers cleaning Zoro up, patching him up and wiping the blood off of him. Some random bastard in a bar hadn't done that to Zoro, Baby had.

"How long has this been going on? How long have you two been together again?" He asks quietly.

"We never broke up. Well- no, not permanently. Off and on I've been with her five years." The other man answers guiltily. Sanji's mind reels, after everything Baby did Zoro never stopped seeing her. He wasn't kidding when he told him that the others hated his secret girlfriend and wouldn't approve- and they didn't know about this!

"And how long has she been punching you in the face when she gets mad?" He asks, not wanting to know the answer but suddenly realising that the vicious slap across the face that he'd found so amusing the very first time he saw it is now anything but.

Zoro shifts uncomfortably in his seat.

"If you don't talk I'm definitely not going to promise to keep my mouth shut." Sanji says flatly, and it's not a threat, it's a promise.

"Only regularly, I mean... only really for... the last two or... three years." The guitarist flushes clearly uncomfortable.

Sanji's mind reels. That means... That means it was happening whilst she was still with the band, it means it happened in their house.

"What do you mean 'only really'? When was the first time?" He asks.

"When I was sixteen. But that was different, she was drunk and she felt horrible as soon as she realised what she'd done. Look, she's been through a lot and it's complicated so just... leave it alone, we're fine, it's not a problem." Zoro argues. Sanji feels like he's swallowed an eel, his stomach is doing something cold and slithery and he thinks he might throw up.

"Why haven't you told anyone?" He asks numbly.

"Because." Zoro sniffs, rubbing more of the blood off of his nose gingerly - it seems to have stopped streaming so much now.

"Because I don't want their pity and... because it's my fault." Zoro says quietly, his fingers pulling anxiously at the hem of his sleeves and unravelling the thread there.

"How could this possibly be your fault, Zoro?" Sanji questions through gritted teeth. Baby has really gotten her claws into Zoro's mind if he thinks that any of this could possibly be his fault in any way at all.

"You wouldn't understand." Zoro answers instead pulling a thread out from his sleeve, Sanji watches as it slowly unravels the fabric around Zoro's hand, the woollen thread is sodden with blood.

"Try me." he says in a raw voice.

"It's... it's my fault because I once told her she could." the other man says quietly, making Sanji's mind reel numbly. _What?_

"The first time it happened she was drunk and so upset, her father had come to see her and scared the life out of her. He used to smack her around as a kid, that's how I got that big scar on my chest, defending her from him, at least until he went to prison anyway. She was just so freaked out after that she ended up getting trashed and she lost control. When she realised what she'd done afterwards she tried to kill herself, saying that she was turning into him and she didn't want to live like that." Zoro explains, pain showing up on his face as clear as day.

"I couldn't lose her Sanji, not like that. I told her that I didn't matter, that if it was what she needed then it was okay. I thought... shit, I thought that because I had about a foot and several stone of weight on her that there was only so much damage she could do. I didn't think she'd..." Zoro trails off with a hollow laugh and gestures to the bloody mess that is his current appearance.

"Apparently practice is a great teacher." Zoro adds bitterly, scowling at his own feet.

Sanji reaches out and grabs Zoro's shoulder, he lets his grip become a little more gentle when he feels Zoro flinch under his touch, he must still be jumpy from his encounter with Baby.

"So... tell her that it's not okay. Because, newsflash: this isn't okay." He says softly, Zoro scowls and bats his hand away.

"Gee, like I hadn't thought of that already. I told her that two years ago and she picked up a mic stand and fractured my collar bone with it." Zoro argues back, his eyes angry.

"It doesn't matter what you once said Zoro, this isn't okay and it's still not your fault, no matter what you said. I mean, if I told you that you could kill me and you did it, it'd still be murder no matter what I said, right?" He reasons, looking intently at Zoro.

"That's different." The other man mumbles, slouching in his seat and unravelling the hem of his sleeve even more. Again, he helpfully does not go into how it's different.

Sanji rubs his palms into his face and tries to scoop his scattered thoughts together.

"Can I ask you something else?" He says after a moment or two. He combs his hands through his own hair, trying to calm himself down a little with the action.

"I don't have to answer." Zoro mutters, yanking at the thread in his sleeve.

"Why are you with her?" Sanji asks earnestly. He looks at the surprised Zoro and waits for his answer. He wasn't going to ask why Zoro hasn't left her because Zoro would no doubt be expecting that and probably have some great distracting rant in his head, certainly well practiced from what he probably tells himself over and over.

"I..." Zoro stumbles, staring at him wide eyed with surprise.

"I care about her." He answers finally, his dark eyes not quite meeting Sanji's.

Sanji bites his lip and thinks that Zoro doesn't feel for her what he perhaps used to years ago. He certainly doesn't trust her like he once must have, it would be hard to when you don't know if any given conversation is going to end up with something bleeding or broken. He suddenly understands Zoro's despair at the idea that he might never meet his soul mate, that he'll just be stuck where he is forever. Zoro can't see any way out and he's just... surviving. That's no way to live.

"Isn't this supposed to be the point where you tell me to leave her then? Where you tell me that it'll be okay and that you don't think any less of me and blah, blah, blah?" Zoro accuses hotly, his scowl sharp.

Sanji's heart aches and his tilts his head and looks at Zoro, really looks at him. No one else knows this about him, everyone else thinks he's at work or out at a bar or off with other friends whenever this happens. Zoro's made it so that no one asks where he is and he's got so good at covering his injuries up that no one even knows they should be asking most of the time. Zoro's so good at lying, something that had set Sanji's teeth on edge and clearly this was why it had, he's so practiced that no one will ever guess. Zoro's made it so that he thought no one would or could ever find him.

Sanji doesn't know if Zoro wanted to be found or not. He clearly isn't happy with the fact that Sanji knows what happens, he can see the flush of embarrassed shame on his cheeks, even through the blood. The way Zoro's lashing out verbally, trying to drive Sanji away or into saying something terrible, something that Zoro can hold up and say 'this is why you can't help'

But if Zoro didn't want out he never would have got in the car, he never would have let this conversation happen and he certainly wouldn't have answered Sanji's questions. Zoro needs his help, wants it to he just... can't bring himself to think about it, let alone ask.

"You know this isn't right and I'm not going to insult your intelligence by implying that you hadn't thought of just leaving her before now." Sanji says shaking his head.

"Seeing as you've not left her I'm assuming that you have a reason." He adds quietly. Zoro looks away and stares off into the night with a scowl.

"Fuck." Zoro curses under his breath and presses the heels of his palms into his forehead and curls up in on himself. Sanji gets the impression that this conversation isn't going how Zoro thought it might.

"I can't just... she'd kill herself if I left, she's told me a million times. I can't live with myself if she..." Zoro says, quiet and broken.

"Zoro..." Sanji breathes and reaches over, his fingers sliding into Zoro's hair. Oh god, he still loves him, of course he does. Zoro's hurting right now and all Sanji wants to do is to pick him up and protect him and it's so fucking bizarre because Zoro is usually the one that knows what's going on, he's the one that everyone looks to, Zoro is the last person that Sanji would usually thinks needs looking after. Except for... well... suddenly all the sleeplessness and anxious behaviour is making sense.

"Fuck, stop that. I know you think I'm weak now but I'm not a fucking cat." Zoro snaps after a few seconds, shaking Sanji's hand off. Sanji obligingly pulls back, if Zoro doesn't want him to touch him right now then he can respect that.

"I don't think you're weak. I don't... I don't know if I could deal with this in your place, I'm bad enough at saying no to women as it is." Sanji admits honestly. Zoro looks up at him from his hands and a weak smile tugs at the corner of Zoro's mouth.

"Yeah, you're right. You're a mess." Zoro teases weakly, seeming a little more like the Zoro that Sanji knows.

"Oh, I know. A complete wreck, just like you say." he agrees with a small smile in return. He catches sight of some blood matted in Zoro's green hair and the small flame of levity is snuffed out inside Sanji's mind.

"Look... I'll make you a deal. I won't tell the others, if only because I don't think it'd actually help and also you'd never speak to me ever again." he sighs, scratching the back of his neck.

"True." Zoro nods, looking a little heartbreakingly hopeful.

"But, I'll only agree to that if you promise that you'll talk to me about this. That you'll let me help you, that you'll come to me and at least let me try to talk you out of ever going back to her." He offers. Zoro squints at him distrustfully.

"It won't work." Zoro answers flatly.

"That's my problem. Do we have a deal?" Sanji asks sternly.

"Deal." Zoro shrugs.

Sanji relaxes a little.

"Okay then. Right... let's get you to a doctor." He says, turning his car back on and indicating to pull out.

"Whoa, no way. No doctors. Not whilst I'm still conscious, which I obviously am. I can patch this up on my own, I've had much worse." Zoro yelps, grabbing the wheel and stopping Sanji from pulling out. Sanji looks over at Zoro's wide panicked eyes and his heart throbs painfully.

"Fine." He mutters, knowing a losing battle when he sees one and pulling out to head back home. Zoro makes them stop part of the way home so that he can ditch his ruined black sweater into some business' dumpster, leaving him in just a black t-shirt under there. There's a raw scrape on his elbow that Zoro doesn't seem to have noticed, it's not bleeding and really not all that bad. It's the kind of stupid scrape that Sanji wouldn't even think twice about if he did it to himself. He doesn't know if it's just the last straw, the final thing that pushes it past his barrier to handle shit today but just the sight of that scrape makes Sanji want to pull the car over and yank Zoro close into him and never let him go. He manages to restrain himself from acting that out as he drives home, but only just.

Zoro refuses to go in the front door and instead declares that he's going to climb up the tree that leads to their hallway window, apparently that's precisely where he sneaks in and out of. He rushes up the stairs, thankfully running into no one else and makes it to their hallway window just as Zoro's climbing through it.

He and Zoro wordlessly go to their shared bathroom, Zoro stopping to retrieve one of his secret ice packs from his secret freezer. He throws it in the bath when they get in there and opens up the cupboard, taking in his expansive medical supplies. Sanji knows now why he needs all of them and he really wishes that he didn't.

Zoro turns on the hot tap and yanks his t shirt off and bends down to wash his face clear of blood. Sanji gasps, all up the side of Zoro's ribs is a hideously painful looking fresh bruise, or at least a day or so old. The whole thing is easily bigger than Sanji's spread palm. His mind flashes to how awkwardly Zoro was holding his guitar this morning and he imagines Zoro's guitar on him and sees that the bruise is right where the instrument would usually rest. No wonder he was so stiff then.

"Oh Zoro..." He breathes, his hand not quite touching as he can see how painful it must be.

The rest of Zoro's back is littered with fresh red marks, things that will becomes bruises and some that are already heading that way. There's a straight one that runs under Zoro's shoulder blades and Sanji thinks that it looks like the edge of a table, it would explain the crash he heard earlier. There's a set of shallow half moon scratches on Zoro's tricep and Sanji's hand does ghost the edges of that.

"You're hurt." he says stupidly.

"Really?" Zoro grumbles flatly and leans down to wash his face off. Sanji ignores him and pulls anti-septic and cotton wool out of the cupboard and sets about disinfecting Zoro's scratches, there's even black nail varnish flecks in some of them.

Zoro rubs that witch hazel stuff for bruises into all of his new and old marks, the ones that he can't quite reach Sanji does in silence, working over Zoro's damaged body with cautious and gentle fingers. It's funny really, he's never ever wanted to hurt a woman in his life but right now he wouldn't shed a single fucking tear if a truck ploughed into Baby's house and killed her.

"You've got glass in your hair, come here." Sanji says quietly, pulling the shower head off of the wall and turning it on.

"You don't have to do this, I'm more than used to-" Zoro protests weakly.

"You're not dealing with this on your own any more, that was our deal, now get your ass over here." Sanji orders, pointing to the edge of the bath.

"Asshole." Zoro mutters, but it lacks its usual venom. Zoro kneels at the edge of the tub and presses his ice pack to his face whilst Sanji busies himself with washing all of the shards of smashed glass vase out of Zoro's green hair. There's blood in there too from where a few pieces scratched him, it's nothing serious and head wounds always bleed like hell anyway. Slightly disoriented Sanji stares at the red washing down the drain, strangely accompanied by a hint of green in the water that must be Zoro's hair dye.

Fuck.

He squeezes his eyes shut and tries to get a grip on reality as he turns the shower off. He drops a clean towel on Zoro's head and lets the other man dry himself off. Zoro sits on the edge of the bath and does so, eventually appearing from under his towel as he wraps it around the back of his neck, the gold of his earrings shining bright against the black towel.

Zoro's face looks a lot better with the blood washed off, there's only a red mark across his nose and cheek, which will probably fade, and a split in his lip to give any real indication of what had happened. Sanji is sat on the floor looking at him and still reeling from the sudden turn of events.

"I bet you're glad I said no when you kissed me. You dodged a bullet there, avoiding all of this." Zoro says quietly, looking off to the side. Sanji looks at Zoro, bruised and hurt but still trying to be funny. Failing, but trying.

"No. I wish you'd said yes, but said no to her a long time ago. I wish this wasn't happening to you at all." He answers instead. Zoro looks at him in surprise before looking away again, a hint of a flush on his cheeks.

"You're stuck with me now, I'm not leaving you to deal with any of this on your own." He says, gently kicking Zoro's ankle to get his attention.

"I'm not going anywhere." He reiterates.

After a moment or two Zoro nods silently.


	11. Chapter 11

ANNOUNCEMENT ON LOVE ME DEAD

hey, so, it turns out that i have broken my finger, thankfully not badly but it'll be two weeks at least until i can type with both hands again, obviously this about halves my writing speed so it will probably be some time until the next update.

Sorry about that but believe me i'd much rather have had this not happen because it really hurts.


	12. Chapter 12

Sorry for the delay with my fractured finger! It'd been slow going writing this with just one hand, but now my finger is more or less healed so it's going a little faster. Thanks so much for all of the well wishes and the patience, I really appreciate it!

Sanji sprawls on his bed in the afternoon studiously trawling through the internet for information. Despite finding Zoro bloody and bruised last night the other man was alarmingly fine this morning. Zoro was carrying on as if everything was fine and nothing was amiss at all, no one else was even aware of any change in Zoro's behaviour and aside from one technical question from Franky regarding the espresso machine that supposedly broke, no one asked anything about where Zoro had been.

Zoro ate meals as if everything was normal, he talked to their friends as if everything was normal, he teased Chopper like everything was normal. No one else had any way of knowing that beneath Zoro's Aerosmith T-shirt he was covered in bruises and marks from Baby. Any hint of the punch he'd taken to his face was gone, either through Zoro's quick healing or through make up Sanji didn't know.

To all observers everything was perfectly fine in Zoro's world.

Only... only it wasn't as Sanji well knew. The fact that Zoro was acting so calmly is what disturbs Sanji the most. He wants to curl up and die when he realises that this _is_ normal for Zoro, hiding bruises and scrapes, lying about where he's been. All of that is in fact how Zoro always conducts his life. It breaks his heart to think that Zoro is so used to keeping that big of a secret from everyone that he barely seems to think about it, he can't stand to think that Zoro keeps so much of himself from people or that he's bearing such a huge burden alone.

He's determined to get Zoro out of his awful situation no matter what, but he knows from his experience trying to force Zoro to do anything is a one way ticket to bitching and uncooperative behaviour. Besides, as he said, Zoro knows that his situation is wrong and if it was so simple as just deciding to up and leave then he would have done so long ago.

So he does what he does whenever he has any kind of important life question. He googles it.

Unfortunately the results seem to bring up a lot of alternately irritating and useless information with only a few nuggets of helpful information in there. There's sponsored ads for women's domestic violence shelters, which is good and all but hardly useful to Zoro as he neither lives with Baby nor is a woman. Site after site refers to Sanji's specified "friend" as a she. The rest all seem to use gender neutral terms but they're not much help either.

Most of the advice seems to revolve around getting a friend to admit that what they're experiencing is abuse and isn't okay, but... Zoro's aware enough to know that he's being abused and yet he's still staying.

It's not until he starts digging around different kind of advice about abuse and the signs of it that he hits upon something interesting and possibly helpful.

"Good luck finding anything helpful there." Zoro's voice says suddenly from behind him, nearly startling Sanji off of his bed.

Sanji squeaks and rolls onto his side and looks up to see Zoro leaning over him. Zoro smirks and drops onto the bed and slowly sprawls himself out over the cover.

"You're concerned, it's kind of sweet." Zoro smirks at the ceiling.

"Of course I'm concerned, you ass." Sanji snaps, flushing red and pulling his laptop shut before carefully putting it on the windowsill above his bed.

"Well, like I said, you're not going to find anything useful there. It's all shit." Zoro says confidently.

"So what you're trying to do is to convince me that you're beyond help and I should forget the whole thing?" Sanji asks, raising an eyebrow. He's really not that dumb, despite what Zoro thinks.

"If you could that'd be great. But no, I just mean that there's no help out there for me on the internet. It's all about women, or if you do find advice for men it's pretty much assuming that you're banging a guy and they're the ones kicking the shit out of you. It's useless." Zoro says with a frown and adjusts himself on Sanji's bed so that he's got his arms folded underneath his head as he looks up at the ceiling.

"I find it interesting for someone who acts like everything is fine you've apparently looked for help online." Sanji says instead. That gets a reaction out of Zoro. The guitarist sends a scowl his way.

"That's not the point. Or are you telling me that you found something useful that I didn't?" Zoro asks. Sanji doesn't say anything.

"Yeah, I thought not." Zoro laughs flatly and shuts his eyes.

"How are your bruises? Does it hurt?" he asks, concerned.

"They feel like rainbows and kittens. What do you think they feel like, moron?" Zoro answers flatly.

"Well can I see them, dickbag?" Sanji growls irritated, seriously, no one gets under his skin quite like Zoro does. He's not sure if that's a good thing. Zoro makes a nonchalant noise in the back of his throat and doesn't move except for a little shoulder jerk that might be a shrug. Zoro clearly isn't going to just show him then.

"Fine." Sanji grumbles and kneels up on the bed.

He sets one knee between Zoro's legs and the other outside them, his right hand rests on the bed by Zoro's side and from this angle he has a good view down on Zoro. The guitarist's eyes open and look up at him curiously.

"Tell me if I hurt you by accident." he mumbles softly and slides his fingers cautiously up under Zoro's shirt. If Zoro won't show him then he'll have to go and see himself.

"What do I do if you hurt me on purpose?" Zoro asks. Sanji jolts and looks at him. Zoro smirks, but the delay is enough for him to know that it was not a joke at first, he was just playing it off as one and that speaks volumes.

"I would never." He says in horror. The guitarist laughs again, humourlessly.

"Go on then." Zoro grins, watching him intently now but Sanji looks down and ignores him.

His fingers slide over the hard ridge of muscle and smooth skin that is Zoro's hip and makes his way cautiously up Zoro's stomach. He feels the muscles flutter under his touch as he pushes Zoro's shirt higher. The first bruise appears, it's darker than yesterday but around the edges it looks to be healing.

"You sure you've not got a cracked rib here?" Sanji asks, looking up at Zoro.

"No, I've had one of those before. This is just muscle bruising." Zoro answers and drops his head back on the bedspread below him, seeming to relax.

Sanji shifts his balance, moving his hand to by Zoro's head and working his hand up Zoro's shirt higher. The bruises that he can see now are smaller, mottled and healing; they'll probably be gone in no time at all. For all his worry Zoro does seem to be more or less okay, physically at least.

"You look good, actually. Better than I thought you would." he says quietly.

"Gee, thanks." Zoro laughs at him, his smile teasing and sarcastic. Sanji rests his hand on Zoro's bare stomach and feels Zoro's laughter ripple through him, he can't help but wonder as he watches the movement whether it hurts the biggest bruise made by Baby's knee in his side.

He tugs at the other side of Zoro's shirt, trying to pull that part up too. Obligingly Zoro shifts his hips up so that the part of his shirt previously pinned under him can be lifted. Sanji is startled by another gasp, he looks up but Zoro isn't looking at him, Zoro's looking at Sanji's open bedroom door.

Sanji's... open... bedroom door. Shit.

"Don't mind me!" Nami squeaks, quickly shutting the door after her and rushing off down the stairs in a clatter of high heels.

"Nami! No- I didn't- this-" Sanji yelps, sitting up and staring at the shut door. Zoro laughs harder, it may as well have been the funniest fucking thing he's seen in his life from the way he's acting. Sanji scowls down at the man between his legs. He wouldn't think it was so funny if they'd been facing the other way and Nami had seen Zoro's bruised up side instead.

"Your _face_!" Zoro howls with glee at Sanji's reddened appearance.

"Shut it! Now she's gonna think that you changed your mind!" Sanji snaps, grabbing one of his pillows and throwing it in Zoro's grinning face.

"Wait, what?" Zoro frowns, leaning up on his elbows and pulling the pillow off of him.

"I didn't tell her anything before you get that in your head, not really. The day after I... after that she kept pestering me to ask you out, saying it was obvious that I liked you and she was convinced you'd say yes." Sanji says quietly, not meeting Zoro's eyes.

He falls off of him and leans against his bedroom wall, staring in the vague direction of the bedroom door but not really focusing on it or anything else.

"Of course by then I knew better. So I tried to convince her to drop it and she said that she'd ask you out for me if I didn't, she meant it to. So I said... I said that I already had and you said no. I told her I didn't want to go into why and she dropped it." Sanji continues.

"I figured since you'd told me that your girlfriend was a secret you wouldn't appreciate me broadcasting that, so I didn't, before you panic. But now she's going to think that you changed your mind." he sighs.

It really doesn't help that he wishes this whole thing with Baby was a horrible nightmare and Zoro had just changed his mind. He'd far rather be leaning above Zoro on his bed feeling him up than hovering over him checking his injuries. But apparently things don't work out like Sanji wants them to.

"So ignore her, let her think what she likes. It's no big deal," Zoro says, rolling his eyes and shoving his shirt back down before settling back into place on Sanji's bed.

"But she'll be happy for me, what am I supposed to say?" he protests.

"I don't care. Say we were just fooling around, or say that I changed my mind back, or that it was just a misunderstanding. Lie, whatever. Or, and here's a radical idea, tell her that it's none of her fucking business!" the green haired man exclaims.

"I can't do that!" Sanji protests.

"Whatever, I don't care." Zoro grumbles and shuts his eyes again.

Sanji watches him for a little while. Can he really just lie to Nami like that? He doesn't think he can, aside from not wanting to lie to a lady he's not a great liar. Not like Zoro apparently is, but then Zoro's had years of practice on lying about who he's with, that he's fine when he's not. This is just a regular day for Zoro even though Sanji's world has been tipped upside down.

"I don't get how you can act so normal about all of this. The lying, the secret keeping, your entire goddamn relationship with Baby. How can you be so normal?" he says after a while, staring at Zoro who seems perfectly calm as he's laid out on his bed like he could just drift off to sleep.

"I am normal. I get that it's not... okay. But it's just pain, I can deal with it. Ending it would be worse." Zoro answers without even opening his eyes.

"And what about finding that person who loves you? Your soulmate or whatever, like you said at the wedding. How's that going to happen if you're stuck with her being broken and bruised all the time?" Sanji says softly.

"...like I said. Not all of us are as lucky as Usopp." Zoro mumbles, his brow pinching regretfully at that.

"Well, I did find something useful online. And since you've literally just insisted that it's nothing but mere pain then I'm sure you won't mind proving me wrong, hm?" He baits him, knowing that Zoro can't just turn down a challenge like that.

"Sure, blondie, shoot. I warn you though, if it's one of those dumbass PSA's about how the smallest injures can kill I may just die from boredom." Zoro shrugs and gives a bored yawn to emphasise his point. Sanji tuts and picks his laptop up again from the windowsill, opening it to the page he was on. He goes back to the beginning and starts again.

"It's a quiz. Question one; 'I am anxious, nervous or worried about my partner's attitudes or moods.' Don't try to say no to that one, you've written _songs_ about that." Sanji prompts.

"Fine." Zoro grumbles with a frown.

"I feel guilty about my partner's resentment." Sanji reads aloud.

"What does that mean?" Zoro questions, opening his eyes now.

"You tell me." Sanji answers, kind of getting into this whole psychology thing.

"You mean, do I feel bad when I piss her off and make her stupidly angry? Why wouldn't I? She certainly makes me regret it." the guitarist scowls.

"I'll put that as a yes. 'I am anxious, nervous or worried about my partner's anger.'" he moves on to the next question.

"That's the same as the first question!" Zoro objects.

"It's not, but that you read it as the same is interesting. 'I get anxious, nervous or worried about my partner's sarcasm, criticism, frowns, glares or gestures.'" Sanji reads out.

"It's not like she's going to hurt my feelings. No." the other man says, jutting his jaw out defiantly as if this is proof that Sanji is wrong.

"I- shit all these questions begin the same. This one is about whether her giving you the cold shoulder or stonewalling you makes you anxious and shit." Sanji says clicking on the screen.

When Zoro doesn't reply Sanji looks around the edge of his laptop to see Zoro staring wide eyed up at the ceiling. If Sanji's not mistaken he's a little paler now and Sanji watches in shock as Zoro swallows thickly and tries to work his mouth.

"I don't want to talk about that. It's a bad sign if she- just, yes. Next." Zoro says tightly. Sanji really wants to follow that up but he supposes that he has to respect Zoro's boundaries and that when he says no he means it, it's not like anyone else does so someone should.

"I edit my thoughts before I speak and second-guess my behaviour before I do anything, in fear that it might set her off or cause the silent treatment." Sanji reads aloud, moving on.

"What is this? Where did you find this?" Zoro demands, kneeling up and trying to grab Sanji's laptop. He ducks out of the way and plants a foot in an area of Zoro's chest he knows in unbruised.

"Ah- no! Humour me. Answer the question." He insists.

"Yes." Zoro answers through gritted teeth and makes another swipe for the laptop. Sanji avoids him and clicks his answer.

"My partner is fine one minute and into a tirade the next- well, I can answer that one on my own from seeing how quickly she went from being in your arms to hurling a vase at your head. Next question. I feel tense when my partner comes into the room." He continues reading.

"Yes. What's this proving again?" Zoro grumbles, folding his arms, evidently having realised that he's not getting the laptop off of Sanji.

"When I walk by my partner, my shoulder's tense, until we get past each other." Sanji reads out.

"I'd be an idiot to think that her being slightly away from me made a difference. No." Zoro answers. Sanji doesn't think that's what the question was getting at so he clicks yes instead.

"I think that if I just tried harder things might be all right." he says from the next slide.

The look on Zoro's face is positively heartbreaking, he looks so hurt and torn.

"Oh Zoro, no. No, there's nothing you should be doing, this isn't you. It's not your fault." Sanji insists, putting his laptop aside and leaning up to tangle a hand in Zoro's hair and make the other man look at him.

"It used to be easier to not piss her off, but now it happens all the time and I don't know-" Zoro cuts himself off, shaking his head and pulls away from Sanji.

Sanji chews his lip and clicks the next screen. This one reads 'I feel that nothing I do is good enough' he doesn't have to ask, nor does he want to. He clicks yes and goes to the results page.

The result flashes up on the screen, it doesn't surprise Sanji from what he's seen but it does make him sad. He flips the screen to show Zoro.

"It's not just the pain Zoro, she's doing more to you than hurting your body, she's in your head too." He says quietly. The screen is displaying Zoro's results showing a high likelihood of emotional abuse and listing off the common signs of abuse.

"I'm not doing this." Zoro mutters and quickly climbs off of Sanji's bed and heads towards the door.

"You came in here for a reason Zoro and I think it's because you wanted help!" Sanji calls after him.

"And what is it that you want? Just what are you getting out of this?!" Zoro demands angrily.

"What do you mean? I'm trying to help." Sanji says looking at Zoro with confusion and hurt on his face.

"No one just "tries to help", you want something. Do you think that you can just save the poor tortured love interest and then ride off into the sunset? Do you think that you can do this just to get me?! That's what you want isn't it?!" Zoro accuses hotly.

Sanji feels a flare of indignant anger rise up inside of him, how dare Zoro accuse him of that? He shoves the reaction down though. This is clearly just a defence mechanism of Zoro's, which means he's hitting close to the mark.

"That's strange," Sanji says calmly "last night you were convinced that I would never want you again, now I'm only doing this to get in your pants. If you're going to pick a crazy theory, at least be consistent."

"Just- just stay out of it!" Zoro snaps and leaves, letting Sanji's bedroom door bang open behind him. Sanji winces, he's not sure if that was a good idea or not. What on earth is he supposed to do then? He can't just leave it like this. He's pretty sure that Zoro did want his help though, why else would he have come inside? Sanji lies down on his bed and thinks for a while, he's never really plotted about how to break a relationship up before so he's no idea where to start.

Should he try and show Baby that he knows or suspects what's going on? That would probably be a bad idea, she might hurt Zoro, especially if she thought he told him. What else then?

Baby already thinks that there is something going on between them, at least that's the impression he got from what he overheard. He could understand how she might come to that conclusion, from the photos. Perhaps she might break up with Zoro if she thought that was true. In fairness, Zoro was reluctant to cheat on her, though whether that was because of his morals or he was afraid of her Sanji doesn't know. Probably not a good idea either.

He supposes he could return to his original plan of trying to convince Zoro to leave her, but in the car he had seemed reluctant to do so saying that she would kill herself. In the darkest corners of his mind Sanji isn't too sure this would be a bad thing, if it wasn't for the way that it would hurt Zoro of course. How he is going to manage that when Zoro has had years to leave her and chosen not to he doesn't know. However impossible it might be it does seem like the best plan though, but just how could he do it? Clearly pointing out to Zoro precisely what was wrong with his relationship with her wasn't going to work, it just made him defensive and angry. Whilst he wants to challenge what was wrong with his and Baby's relationship he didn't want to press too hard and have Zoro stop telling him things altogether. He needed to somehow be firm about Baby's abuse being wrong, but not judgemental to Zoro about it. He needed Zoro to feel like he could come to him for help, which Zoro clearly needed.

This all sounds good in theory, but he has no idea how he was actually going to do it. Remaining calm and nonjudgmental when Zoro came and told him things would be a good idea, but how is he supposed to do that when seeing every injury on his body made him furious? How could he sit and listen acceptingly when Zoro told him how much he needed Baby when Sanji wanted nothing more than to drag him away from her forever? No one should be allowed to hurt Zoro like that, but he couldn't very well just hold to Zoro hostage to stop him from seeing her, if he did that he would almost be no better than Baby.

So, however hard it may be he was going to have to listen and not freak out. Hopefully with enough gentle persuasion Zoro might start to see things properly and maybe, just maybe, work up the guts to leave Baby for good. Still, even though really he knows it's not true, he can't help but wonder about what Zoro said. Is something of why he's doing this just because of his own self-interest? After all the only reason Zoro turned him down was because of Baby. He can't completely deny that it has anything to do with his decision, but it's certainly not what's driving it, he is concerned about Zoro. Terrified for him even.

Sanji returns to his research.

When Sanji goes downstairs to make dinner, he finds Zoro in the garage ignoring him and fixing his bike. Sanji doesn't even know what the hell on Zoro's bike it is that he keeps fixing but he leaves him to it. If he wants to sulk he can. He needs to do more research but there's only so much about the situation that the Internet can tell him. What he really needs is someone who is in Zoro's head but not so much so that they would guess why Sanji is asking. Asking Robin would be a bad idea she is far too clever and would work out why he's asking for too quickly. No, he needs someone nice but dumb. At that moment, captain nice but dumb walks right into the kitchen.

"Luffy! I was hoping to see you." Sanji says with a cunning smile as Luffy walks into the room.

"Oh? Is it because there is food?!" The drummer asks excitedly looking around trying to find his meal with excited and hungry eyes.

"No," Sanji says flatly, "but there will be food if you answer my question."

That gets about 110% of Luffy's attention. The drummer hops up onto one of the barstools and looks at Sanji like an overly excited puppy.

"The wedding got me thinking," Sanji lies, "do you think Zoro and Baby were ever happy? I mean, since they were together for years, they were happy right?"

"That's a weird question." Luffy says tilting his head curiously.

"I guess sometimes they were. Or at least Zoro was, Baby always seemed on edge or angry. Why do you wanna know?" Luffy asks with a frown. Sanji needed to come up with an explanation for his question, otherwise even Mr. Nice-But-Dumb here would work out something was up.

"I just figured that they had to be, or else why would Zoro stay with her? Or at least, why would he have stayed with her for so long?" Sanji answers, sort of honestly.

"Oh! That's easy!" Luffy laughs delightedly.

"Uh, it is?" Sanji says in bewilderment.

"Sure! He felt guilty." Luffy declares.

"That doesn't make any sense." Sanji says.

"Well, you know about Baby's past, right? About her father?" Luffy asks, sounding a little worried that he might have said something he shouldn't have.

"He used to hurt her, yeah?" Sanji says turning to look at Luffy properly, his hand on his hip.

"Yeah, I guess Zoro felt bad that he couldn't stop him sooner. You know what he's like, he feels like it's his fault." Luffy says with a shrug.

"But that's crap. Zoro was just a kid, there's nothing he could've done more than he did. And didn't he get the guy put in jail? What more could he have done?" Sanji frowns, he knows exactly how much Zoro is prone to blaming himself. Especially where Baby was concerned.

"But why would that make Zoro stay with her? How is that related?" Sanji asks.

"Well, it messed her up. So I guess Zoro felt like he should stay with her, to fix her, or whatever." Luffy shrugs.

"But… That's just…" Sanji doesn't have any words. He wants to say that it's stupid but he can't quite make himself do that, he knows what Zoro has been through so the last thing he wants to do is to imply that the other man is stupid. He decides to ask the next question that he wants to know the answer to.

"Do you think that if Baby hadn't broken up with him, he might have left her?" Sanji asks, as neutrally as he can.

"I dunno." The drummer answers softly.

Sanji thinks that answer isn't especially helpful. He does know that Zoro didn't leave her after she broke up with him, on the contrary, he got back together with her afterwards. He wonders what it was that Baby had to say or do to get him to agree to that. What he really wants to know is whether or not Zoro might actually break up with her on his own given enough time and Sanji's reassurance. Sanji suspects that he won't. He seriously hopes that he's wrong, but the doubt is there.

"Why are you asking?" Luffy asks with a frown.

"I don't know, I guess because I'm just singing songs that Zoro wrote when he was in that situation I can't help but wonder what it would've been like. I wonder if he would have gotten out on his own," Sanji half lies. He supposes that is part of what he's wondered before, but it's not his main reason for asking now.

"Anyway," Sanji begins, changing the subject, "wasn't I making you food?"

The other man is predictably distracted by this, bouncing up and down in his chair as Sanji places food in front of him.

When Zoro doesn't show up to dinner that night Sanji fears the worst, especially as Zoro isn't in the house anywhere when he goes looking. When he asks the others all inform Sanji that he's out at work, or something, they add with a shrug. Sanji grits his teeth and leaves the kitchen door open, knowing full well that Zoro will probably have to walk past the door in order to get inside. And that is unless he climbs the tree out back again.

Sanji busies himself totally not waiting up for Zoro by making sweet treats in the kitchen. He makes candied apples for Chopper, sweet tea recipes for Brooke and Robin, cakes for both ladies and gooey chocolate chip cookies for everyone else. For Zoro he makes a batch of bitter dark chocolate cookies with wasabi, just the thing to appease the man's not so sweet tooth.

As he cooks and bakes he practices his vocals. He runs through warm ups, scales and throat exercises. They all sound embarrassingly silly which is why he doesn't like to do them with an audience. He notices with some irritation that he's sticking to the mid and higher range of his vocal range and not really venturing lower where he's less comfortable. He knows that he's not got that deep sexy kind of voice that Zoro has, true his range is broader and he's got a more powerful and flexible voice than Zoro has, but the guitarist can just hit certain lower notes that sends all of Sanji's blood equally low.

Sanji picks a song that's deeper than he would usually go, something a little out of his confidence zone. If he wants to improve after all and he can't just rely on Zoro to do that for him. He picks an Ian Dury song "What a Waste". It's a great song, one from Zeff's era of music, the old man was always partial to gritty British ska and things like this were always playing in their home even before they got the bar. It reminds him so much of home and his old man, of course he knows the lyrics inside out.

"_I could be the driver in an articulated lorry_

_I could be a poet, I wouldn't need to worry_

_I could be the teacher in a classroom full of scholars_

_I could be the sergeant in a squadron full of wallahs_

_What a waste! What a waste!_

_What a waste! What a waste!_

_Because I tried to play the fool in a six-piece band_

_First-night nerves every one-night stand_

_I should be glad to be so inclined_

_What a waste! What a waste! But the world don't mind"_

He grins as he sings. The whole song is about the singer being told that he should give up music for something more sensible. Something he was often told at school. When he expressed an interest for cooking after he took it up to look after his old man his teachers suggested that he do that. But he didn't want to listen to them, he wanted to sing and work with his old man! To his credit Zeff always told him to chase his dreams, and in the case of joining this band, forced him to do so. Not everyone was so lucky.

"_I could be a lawyer with stratagems and ruses_

_I could be a doctor with poultices and bruises_

_I could be a writer with a growing reputation_

_I could be the ticket-man at Fulham Broadway station_

_What a waste! What a waste!_

_What a waste! What a waste!_

_Because I tried to play the fool in a six-piece band_

_First-night nerves every one-night stand_

_I should be glad to be so inclined_

_What a waste! What a waste! But the world don't mind"_

He continues singing, focusing on keeping his voice as deep as Dury's. He likes this song and wonders if his picking is a sign of homesickness. He was pretty argumentative with his old man the last few times that he's seen him, even though they usually are he could go back and be quiet and nicer. That'd be nice. His old man was only looking out for him despite all his intrusive questions about Zoro.

"_I could be the catalyst that sparks the revolution_

_I could be an inmate in a long-term institution_

_I could lead to wide extremes, I could do or die_

_I could yawn and be withdrawn and watch them nullify_

_What a waste! What a waste!_

_What a waste! What a waste!_

_Because I tried to play the fool in a six-piece band_

_First-night nerves every one-night stand_

_I should be glad to be so inclined_

_What a waste! What a waste! But the world don't mind"_

He hears a sound behind him and turns, midway through some orange frosting on Nami's cake and the last few choruses of the song to see that Zoro has come into the room. He appears calm and unharmed, at least on the surface, but he knows better than to believe that. Zoro could well have been at Baby's though.

"Don't let me stop you." Zoro says quietly, making his way over to Sanji.

"Don't worry about it, I was just practicing the deeper end of my range, I'm not so good there." He admits with a shrug and finishes the icing. He drops the bowl and spatula in the sink and turns to Zoro again. The guitarist has made his way to the cakes and treats and is looking at them curiously. Sanji comes a little closer and catches a strong scent of coffee radiating from Zoro's warm tan skin; he's been at work then, not with Baby. Sanji relaxes tension that he hadn't been aware that he was holding.

"So you do all this fancy stuff too, not just real food." Zoro notes, casting a surveying eye over Sanji's craftsmanship. Zoro is apparently responding to their previous argument by completely refusing to acknowledge it. Sanji can live with that.

"Don't be such an asshole, here, try these. I made them just for you." Sanji says, pushing Zoro's dark chocolate cookies towards him.

"I don't really like sweet things..." Zoro says, shaking his head.

"I know. Trust me." Sanji says, nodding to them.

Zoro seems to evaluate him for a moment or two before making a hesitant and wary move for one of the cookies, as if it might come alive and bite him with terrible fangs. Zoro bites into the completely innocent cookie and Sanji watches in silent joy as Zoro's face flashes from surprise to pleasure.

"Oh." Zoro says simply in surprise and perhaps a touch of wonder. He takes another bite and it's all Sanji can do to not explode into a victory lap around the kitchen.

"How was work then?" Sanji asks casually, starting to wash up and feeling a pleased hum inside him as Zoro joins him at his side.

"Really creepy is how work was." Zoro grumbles, drying a plate.

"Oh?" Sanji asks with curiosity.

"There was this crazy bastard at work all evening. He was just eyeballing me all evening with this really creepy look and I mean it, he was there from five minutes into my shift until the moment I left! I thought he was going to try to run me off of my bike on the way back!" Zoro exclaims, shaking his head in creeped out disbelief.

"Maybe you were just imagining it? Maybe he just looks like that or something, or he got stood up? I doubt some random guy is stalking you." Sanji says, trying to be reassuring.

"He came up to me near the end of my shift, jabbed his finger in my chest and growled _'I'm watching you boy'_ into my face, then walked backwards out of the place glaring me down the whole way." The guitarist says flatly.

"Okay, so maybe he was stalking you. Any idea who this crazy guy was? Was he our age? Some kind of crazy fan or something? Maybe we should tell Nami and Luffy if you've got yourself a real stalker..." He trails off thoughtfully.

"Never seen that old bastard before in my life. And I'd recognise him. He was six foot, he had a fake leg and this crazy ass moustache that, I swear, was braided!" Zoro exclaims.

Oh shit. He should never have told Zeff where Zoro worked. Now the old geezer was trying to do his stern fatherly protection thing by going and mysteriously intimidating Zoro for no reason! Suddenly all his warm fuzzy feelings about his old man evaporate and Sanji is left instead just wanting to curl under a rock and die. He can hardly say 'Oh hey, I know that old geezer, funny story, he's my dad!' no way. He's lucky that Zoro is talking to him at all after their argument about the guitarist's abusive girlfriend, he doesn't really want to align himself with the crazy loon who's stalking and threatening Zoro.

"Sanji?" Zoro prompts, and Sanji realises that he's been quiet for a few moments too long.

"Uh, yeah. That's... pretty crazy. I'm ah... I'm gonna get the others, let them know about the cake and such." Sanji says, his voice too bright in an effort to conceal his deception. He vanishes in a quick trail of washing up bubbles and scampers off out of the room.

He decides to follow through with his lie and brings the others downstairs to see. There is much excitement about the food and he gets compliments from everyone. The band all moves into the living room and Zoro and Franky decide to set up for a movie marathon. Since Usopp isn't here they decide to make it a horror movie marathon, much to Robin's delight. The keyboard player is apparently too much of a scaredy-cat to abide horror movies usually, only Zoro is ever able to cajole him into it. However, with the long nosed musician still on honeymoon they can watch all the horror movies they like.

Sanji isn't that great a fan of horror movies, not that they scare him, he just prefers other kinds of movies. He likes action films, or even romance films. Okay, he will admit it, romance films are really his favourite. But with films like Brief Encounter, Casablanca and more modern things like Lost in Translation... he can't help it, he's a romantic. So seeing the main characters of these films gruesomely eviscerated is not really what he's looking for in a film. Robin and Zoro seem to have a tradition guessing how and in which order the characters will come to their untimely ends, Sanji can't help but be perturbed by how accurate Robin's guesses are. He excuses himself early and heads up to bed, stopping on the stairs outside his room to text his old man a message.

'_Stop stalking Zoro you psycho!' _He sends him.

'_Is it a crime to be concerned about your son? This is the thanks I get.' _he gets back.

_'Knock it off, you're just doing this to mess with me!' _He argues and turns off his phone before falling into bed.

He does of course have a new married couple to cook for first thing the next day. He's up early enough in the morning that he has the door open for Kaya and Usopp to come in. At this point he's already got hot caffeinated drinks ready in waiting for them and is part way through making them a French breakfast.

When the couple come through the door unlocking it in the early morning quiet, hefting suitcases and groaning, Sanji is ready and waiting.

"Breakfast?" He asks with a soft smile.

"Oh thank god, I told you that he would do this, it's great isn't it?" Usopp exclaims happily, rushing forward, grabbing a mug from Sanji's hand and dropping his suitcase in the process. He breathes out a pleased groan as his hands wrap around the market and all the tension seems to drain out of his body.

"We've been flying for so long, I smell like aeroplane and I want to eat, shower and sleep and never wake up again." Usopp groans tiredly.

"Is that for us?" Kaya asks, gesturing towards the fully made continental European breakfast.

"Of course it is, go right ahead." Sanji says gesturing to the spread on the table.

The two weary travellers start tucking into their meal happily and tiredly. Sanji joins them after a while, but he can't help but notice that the two of them are shooting each other conspiratorial glances whilst looking sidelong at him at regular intervals. From the reaction Nami had and the now seemingly very preplanned bouquet toss at him and Zoro, Sanji can guess precisely what the two were thinking about when they look at.

"No, Zoro and I aren't together. Yes, I asked. He said no. I don't want to talk about it or mention it again, don't say anything to him." Sanji rattles off in explanation and shoots both of them a look that brokers no argument.

Usopp looks like he's going to argue, or question. But his wife thankfully shoots her husband a look that suggest that he shut his mouth right now, instead she tends to look at Sanji sympathetically.

"I'm really sorry." She seems earnest too which sort of helps if it wasn't the fact that Sanji knows why Zoro has said no.

"Yeah, well…" He shrugs and looks away. He is kind of hoping that they will gossip, it hurts every time he has to tell someone. It's as if every time he has to admit that Zoro turned him down it becomes a little more real, a little more obvious that he's never going to be with Zoro. Part of him hopes that if Zoro gets away from Baby they might get together. But now he's not so sure, he doesn't know if Zoro will actually leave Baby. He wants him to so badly, but more importantly he wants Zoro to do it because he doesn't want to do it for him.

Zoro ought to leave Baby because she's mean and evil and hurts him, Sanji doesn't want to be the one to replace her _as a replacement_ in some kind of shitty trading-your-abusive-girlfriend swap-off. He doesn't know how messed up Zoro is and if the other man is even capable of having a real relationship right now with someone who doesn't try to knock his teeth out. He knows that Zoro is attracted to him, he kissed him back after all. But does that even mean anything? Or is it just Zoro reacting to the first person to give him attention who isn't Baby? Sanji is so snarled up inside his own head that he doesn't realise that he's been quiet for some time. He comes to when Kaya puts her hand on his and uses it to give a reassuring squeeze. Sanji looks sharply at her and she smiles softly and sadly at him.

"I'm really sorry Sanji." She says quietly.

"Yeah, me too," Sanji shrugs sadly. She doesn't know the circumstances but at least he can get a little non-specific sympathy he supposes.

The duo shoot each other looks of questioning concern but Sanji ignores it.

Sanji catches the gentle sounds of arguing getting closer that tells him that Zoro and Robin are up. Despite Zoro being a lazy arse who sleeps more than he has any right to, he does tend to be an early riser along with Robin. In fairness Zoro is more inclined to go back to bed after eating breakfast but still, he tends to be up reasonably early.

"–not even like that's what happening here!" Zoro protests at the end of whatever argument they were having.

"Usopp!" Zoro exclaims excitedly and rushes over to his best friend. The keyboard player leaps up as well and flings his arms around his neck and grabs in what would otherwise seem an incredibly gay hug. Obviously Sanji doesn't have any problem with that kind of thing, you know, since she's trying to get into Zoro's pants himself after all. But a lifetime of being brought up in a culture that deems contact between men to be "gay" it's a little strange to see. Still, the beaming grins on both of their faces suck me make Sanji happy to see it and he wonders if having the keyboard player here might make Zoro more mentally stable what with Baby's presence in Zoro's life.

Sanji wrenches his attention from the embracing pair and looks up at Robin. The raven-haired woman is smiling at him in that disconcerting way that she does which makes Sanji think that she knows everything he's ever tried to keep hidden. A shudder runs down his spine and he wonders if the two of them were talking about his thing Zoro. Now Robin and Kaya are looking at each other sharing knowing glances and that is even worse. He wants to leap between them waving his arms and telling them to stop their secret-psychic-lady-communication but that would be entirely suspicious with a capital S.

Sanji makes a show of returning to prepare breakfast for the rest of his friends and as he does so the rest of them all start filtering in exchanging pleasant and pleased comments about how well the wedding went and how the honeymoon was.

"Sanji, sit down." Nami looks at him disapprovingly.

"Just one more dish, Nami!" Sanji chirps, trying to prepare even more food.

"No, sit down, I have an announcement to make now that everyone is back." She insists, gesturing to his chair.

Curiously Sanji makes his way to his chair and sits down ignoring Luffy's pouting at his not making more food. Nami looks around the band is the all in breakfast and clears her throat to make the mysterious announcement.

"Luffy and I decided what the band is going to do next. I know before that we've been focused on finding a new singer, but now that we found Sanji here and everything is going so well we need to keep moving forward. First of all we need to finish the album we're currently on, then we need to distribute it and see how well it does." Nami says seriously.

"How many are you thinking of printing? If it's going to be more than a certain amount we might need to do some kind of fund raising." Robin says cleverly.

"I think a Kickstarter might be what we need there. I want to print a lot because we're going to need them on our tour." Nami says with a cunning smile which simply begs the others to ask her for more information. Thankfully the others will oblige, mostly all at the same time.

"There is a competition and a tour running. It's a sort of battle of the bands knock out with each gig featuring two bands fighting it out for the next round, the next round being the next show in the tour. The competition takes you half way through the Grand Line, and if you win you get access to the rest of the Grand Line. It's not a free ride the entire way, but it's an open door to an opportunity that once we take we can take the whole way." Nami says seriously.

The kitchen is so still and silent that you could hear a pin drop. The Grand Line is only the most famous tour line ever, all of history's greatest bands have toured down it and doing so really proves that you are the best of the best. Going down it is part of Sanji's big dream. His biggest dream of all is to find the secret backstage room, All Blue, where only the very best singers get to go to show off their voice.

He doesn't need to be a rocket scientist to guess that the Grand Line is part of several other people's dreams as everyone else around the table is sitting bolt upright and staring. Zoro wants to be known as the best guitarist in the world, something that he can't very well do without having gotten to the end of the Grand Line.

"Wait, is this the Sabaody tour that you're talking about?" Sanji asks in surprise as the event starts to sound more and more familiar.

"Yeah... how...?" Nami asks back, looking slightly irritated at him for stealing her thunder somewhat. He flashes her a suitably apologetic smile and answers.

"My old man's bar, The Baratie, was one of the first venues for that last year. We're right by the beginning of the Grand Line after all, people warming up for that tour always come by the Baratie. I didn't know that they were repeating the competition this year though." He says thoughtfully.

"Maybe you should find out, a home field advantage could be just what we need." Robin purrs, clearly pleased.

"This is so exciting! This will be great for you, I just know it!" Kaya exclaims, hugging her new husband tight with delight.

"You signed us up right?" Luffy asks serious for a change.

"I just have one last form to return, I need everyone's signatures. And now that Usopp is back..." Nami answers and slides the paper across the table. She taps the page and Usopp signs where he needs to. The form is passed around the table with everyone signing. When it gets to Sanji he reads it quickly, it's the usual stuff about the competition rules and them owning the publicity material. He's not worried about it because as devious as Nami can be with her contracts he knows that she wouldn't put this one before them without dissecting every word and approving it.

"Who else is competing?" Zoro asks as Sanji signs.

"Bonney, Kid, Law... all of the Supernovas. It's going to be a fierce competition!" Nami grins.

"Supernovas?" Sanji asks, thrown by the term.

"Did you ever read North Blue Music?" Nami asks him. Sanji nods, he has, it's their region's local music magazine. Zeff used to read it to get some context for the bands that wanted to book and sometimes to offer gigs to bands. He'd read it from time to time if he was bored but never actively as it was pretty low budget and catered for such a wide variety of music that it was hard to find things he was interested in. On top of that he had work and... well, he just never got around to reading it often.

"Sometimes." He adds with a shrug.

"Well, they did a feature of the best artists in the region and Zoro and Luffy both made the list, as well as nine other artists. The eleven of them were dubbed the supernovas.

"I take it that Baby is going to be there too." Zoro says flatly, looking straight at Nami. Nami glares right back and says nothing, neither blinking nor moving.

"She's a supernova too?" Sanji asks, looking between the heated stare down in confusion.

"No, she's not." Luffy answers instead, seemingly ignoring the Mexican standoff going on right in front of him.

"And it pissed her off something awful that Luffy and Zoro made the list and she didn't." Franky snorts, a grin playing on his lips.

Zoro doesn't move and doesn't break his locked down stare with Nami but Sanji sees his hand twitch slightly tenser as Franky speaks. Sanji wonders just how angry that made Baby and just what price Zoro paid for it.

"Just sign the paper." Nami orders him stiffly.

"Just answer the question." Zoro retorts just as cold.

"She's entered too." Luffy answers and the staring contest springs apart. Nami looks at Luffy with anger and betrayal that their leader could overrule her ever and Zoro's gaze drops to the paper. Sanji watches as Zoro signs his name instantly, without hesitation or pause.

Nami all but leaps the table in her haste to claw the legally binding document back, she clutches it to her chest and stares at Zoro.

"If you were gonna sign regardless why did you ask?" Nami demands, throwing her hands up in the air in frustration.

"I wanted to know, it was a simple question wasn't it? Maybe if you weren't trying to meddle so much it wouldn't have been so hard, would it?" Zoro shoots back.

Luffy laughs at their ongoing argument which quickly descends into bickering and accusations of being either a meddlesome harpy or being a hopeless and prickly bastard. Sanji tunes them out.

"Whatever!" Zoro eventually shouts, getting to his feet and slamming his hands down on the table top as he rises.

"I'm going." He announces. Sanji's ears perk up at that.

"Wait, you don't have work today. I know you don't. Where are you off to?" Nami challenges him, making Sanji cheer inside for her fantastic intelligence. Finally someone else is noticing Zoro's disappearances! He carefully keeps his face neutral and doesn't even look at Zoro.

"I'm just going out, is that okay or am I under house arrest now and not allowed to leave unless I'm working?" Zoro snorts and walks off out of the room, casually messing up Usopp's hair as he passes him.

Sanji frowns. Is Zoro going off to see Baby to explain his joining the competition to her? He can't imagine that she'd take that well, seeing has how she looked at Zoro when they were performing in public together for the first time. Then again, she doesn't like the fact that Zoro is performing with anyone but her at all. Sanji remembers all too well her angry insistence that he give up his place in their band and join her instead.

It's obviously an attempt to control him, to jealously guard his time, talent and person from others. Something that Sanji's internet research had taught him were classic signs of emotional abuse. And really, he does believe that Zoro can cope with the physical stuff. Not that it's okay that she gives him bruises and cuts, the fact that Zoro's still sporting a fading bruise on his ribs from where Baby kneed him is so far from okay that you can't even see it in the distance anymore. But his point is that the controlling behaviour and emotional manipulation seem worse.

Zoro isn't entirely a contrary character by nature but he really does only do something if he wants to, or if he likes you enough to do it as a gesture of friendliness towards you. And yet Baby has him leaping up from the table like this just to run off to her in order to defuse the situation of her finding out that he's competing and stop her from blowing up. That shows damage that doesn't just fade away like a bruise. He's far more scared of upsetting her and making her angry than he is about her hurting him, Sanji is sure about that.

But what can he do about it?

"I thought he might not sign. I find it interesting that he did." Robin says softly as the front door shuts behind Zoro.

"We're going to win." Luffy states flatly as if it's as an immutable fact as gravity.

"Hell yeah!" Franky cheers, punching the air and delivering an overly enthusiastic high five to Brook who then examines his hand like he thinks something might be broken.

"Can't wait to see her face when we win," Usopp laughs boisterously.

Sanji remembers her face when she showed up at their gig, how she intimidated Zoro, a man who Sanji would have thought before then simply could not be intimidated by anything at all. He remembers how Zoro begged her to calm down and not attack him, how he tried to admit whatever fault she wanted in order to keep her calm. Rage rolls and boils under his skin.

"I can't wait to see her face when I destroy her." He growls, sinking low in his chair with a scowl. The others all look at him in surprise for a second. Nami is the first to break out into a sinister and wicked grin.

"Yessss... come to the dark side and we can plot her horrible murder together..." Nami hisses in glee and strokes Sanji's arm like she's the evil villain and he's her fluffy white cat or something.

Sanji sinks a little lower into his chair and fumes quietly. He really hates her but he can't help but feel wrong about hating her or wishing bad things on her. She's a lady after all and his entire lifetime he's forever wanted to be nothing but gentlemanly and kind to ladies in both thought and deed but with her he just can't.

"That's cold man, you've not even met her!" Franky laughs, clearly not actually disapproving.

"I've met her several times and each time I see her is worse than the last." Sanji corrects Franky.

"Anyway. I'm out as well." He says, not wanting to elaborate further on his meetings with Baby because doing so will severely test his ability to not tell everyone what is going on. He doesn't know whether he should tell or not. He knows that he's probably supposed to, but he promised he wouldn't and in all honesty he doesn't think that doing so will help Zoro at all. He highly doubts that it'll stop Zoro from seeing Baby if he still wants to. All it will do is drive him further from the people who care about him and put them out of his reach if he ever did decide to turn to them for help getting out of his situation. No, keeping quiet isn't the nicest thing for him, but at least right now it's the best thing for Zoro.

He excuses himself from Nami who whines and says that he needs to help her plan Baby's untimely end but he's let off of the hook when Robin smiles her devious smile and offers to help. Sanji shudders at the thought of just what Robin might have in mind, especially as she was always so spot on with working out the gruesome deaths of the poor victims in the horror movies last night. No doubt if Robin had her way Baby would come to a very nasty and unnecessarily elaborate end.

Wandering to his bedroom to think is a considerably more effort driven affair than it ever was in his old man's house, ah the days when his bedroom was down the hall from the kitchen and pretty much everything else, rather than up five fucking flights of stairs or some shit like that.

He closes his eyes and stretches out on his bed. He needs to think.

He's a smart guy right? Right. So, he needs to think of just what he can do to pull Baby and Zoro apart. It's clearly not healthy what's going on and part of him is worried that she's going to do some serious physical harm to Zoro that can't be undone with just time and Zoro's extensive medical cabinet. And if she hasn't done some permanent damage to Zoro's psyche then surely that damage can't be far off.

So how does he do it then?

Zoro's not dumb enough to fall for him trying to split them up in any straightforward kind of way. He wonders what would happen if Baby cheated on Zoro, would he leave her then? He jolts when he remembers that it wasn't too long ago that photos of Baby making out with some guy in a club when she was on tour were circulating around the internet. Of course Zoro was still secretly with her then.

Sanji rolls onto his front and tries to shove down the sympathy pang in his heart. Poor Zoro, and he's still with her.

Right. So, no way is convincing her to cheat on him going to split them up. And Zoro isn't in denial about the physical stuff but he is about the emotional stuff. Maybe if he could get Zoro to be really honest about that with himself then he'd consider leaving her. Or at least see her a little more for what she is.

It's not like Zoro is ever going to be honest about how Baby makes him _feel_ or anything is he? Zoro has all the emotional intelligence of one of Sanji's sponge cakes. If Sanji is just going to wait around for Zoro to just get this on his own then he's fucked. Or rather, he's not, because Zoro isn't ever going to leave Baby at this rate which means not only is his life going to suck but Sanji is never going to get into Zoro's pants. And okay, yeah, he has conflicted motives there, but still!

Sanji doesn't know how one man can be so frustrating. He decides to take his frustration away with music and slides his comfortable blue headphones on as he sits up on his bed and flicks through the songs on his phone. He comes out of the song he'd been last listening to, one of their own as he had been practicing. He looks through their discography and chews his lips. It wasn't fair to say that Zoro was emotionally dumb, he could pull out real emotion and dissect it rather beautifully as it happens, just he only seems to really be able to do that when he's writing music. He flicks through their songs and quickly identifies the ones about Baby, they're reasonably honest, all along the theme of "hey I love/loved you and you ripped my heart out!"

All of that was great but still Zoro seemed to believe that he had to be with her. Sanji doesn't know if Zoro's assertion that Baby would kill herself without him was true or not. A rather ruthless part of Sanji doesn't give a shit, except he does really because it would be a shame and more importantly Zoro would feel guilty about it for the rest of time.

Still, he flicks through their songs and notes that they're all from Zoro's perspective. And Zoro already knows how he feels about Baby, in love and miserable, he hates her but he doesn't feel he can leave. None of that shit it helpful to Sanji's "get Zoro away from her" plan. If only Zoro had the sense to see that Baby is just playing with him, that she's just swinging from nice to nasty just to keep Zoro right where she wants him – under her control. Zoro has weakly asserted that she's not all bad, that sometimes she's sweet, that it's not all split lips and bruised ribs. You know, like that makes it okay or something. Fuck, it's just all so calculated and Baby is smart enough to play Zoro like an instrument.

But again, Zoro doesn't have the self-awareness, or doesn't want to have the self-awareness, to see that. If only he could convince Zoro to honestly try to get into her head, then maybe he'd see that. But this brings him back to Zoro's emotional idiocy. If only he could get Zoro to write a song about her but... well, maybe about how she feels about him. Just so that he can see how deliberately she manipulates him. Somehow though he doesn't think the he can just order Zoro to do that. Ugh. Whatever.

He flops back on his bed defeated and stares up at his phone's screen. He's sure an answer will come to him if he just thinks about the problem in the back of his mind for long enough. He just needs to stop worrying at the problem consciously and let his mind run over it on its own. In the meantime he can do something more productive with his time and work out just exactly who the supernovas are and how they're a threat in this competition. He's going to need to be at his very best in order to use all of his vocal power to do his bit to ensure that they win. He grins at the thought of destroying Baby publicly.

With that thought in mind he pulls up her music on spotify, it's easy to find since she's with such a big label, he settles down to listen to it with a Cheshire cat grin. He wants to be able to beat her at anything, even her own music. As the music washes over him he finds it easy enough to work out which music was written by Zoro and which was written by Baby herself. When it's vocal he can tell, Zoro's particular turn of phrase with lyrics acts like a fingerprint almost, it's not something he can put his finger on or a particular word that he uses a lot. There's just a... Zoro-ish quality to it.

There are a few songs of hers where the lyrics don't feel like Zoro but the guitar is entirely Zoro's style, that confident exuberant style, that one is harder to pick up as the guitarist that Baby has is nowhere near as good as Zoro is, it just sounds like his guitar played poorly. He's pleased to note that Zoro's fingerprint disappears entirely from her music the moment that she publicly "broke up" with him.

He doesn't know why but the thought that Zoro could be writing with her in secret is almost more disturbing than the idea of him sneaking out to see her in secret. Sanji lets a grin come over his face. He knows that it's kind of sick to get this sort of glee out of this, but that Zoro finds it so easy to write with him speaks volumes. He wonders if Zoro refuses to write with her any more or if he just can't. Looking at the discography of the band when Baby was in his place he can see that whilst Zoro was a prolific songwriter in the band's early years the denseness and tone of the music drops off more and more dramatically as time goes on. The further into their relationship Zoro seemed to get, the harder it seems to have been to access that part of himself. His music is more pained too, hints of darkness under fast paced music and lyrics that are a little graphically horrifying when looked at too long.

He switches to just Zoro's songs, the older versions sung by him, rather than the edited versions that Nami has been making them record lately, with him singing instead of Zoro. The sound of Zoro's voice unknots his tense muscles and lulls him into an almost trance like state. He's scared out of his wits when his phone suddenly rings, blaring into his ears through his headphones. He yelps and smacks his phone, apparently hitting the button to connect the call.

"Uh... Sanji?" Zoro's voice breathes in his ears, making Sanji scrabble for the phone on the floor where it fell after he slapped it.

"Yeah, I'm here! What- what's up?" He babbles, trying to recover his smoothness and probably totally failing.

"Uh..." Zoro mumbles uncertainly, sending a cold shudder up Sanji's spine.

"I need a ride. But can you promise me something first?" Zoro asks softly.

"Oh Zoro..." Sanji whimpers, already able to tell what Zoro wants. "I won't... I won't tell anyone. Just tell me where you are and I'll come get you."

"I need you to promise me something else too." Zoro says, stopping Sanji in his tracks.

"What?" he questions.

"Promise me you won't freak out and take me to the hospital or something." Zoro demands.

"Uh... well, did you hit your head, lost a lot of blood or broken something?" Sanji frowns.

"...No. I'll be fine I just need to get home is all. Promise me?" the other man pleads.

"That's asking a lot without me knowing exactly what's wrong." he points out, wondering just what kind of injury this is. I think if I'm promising you this then I need something in return." Sanji says, a bright idea suddenly hitting him.

"What?" Zoro growls out flatly.

"Write me a song, about anything I choose. And you've got to be honest with it, no jerking me around and trying to worm out of the thing that I mean whilst still vaguely fitting the request I gave you. Write me a real song. Write about Baby." he states, leaping upon his opportunity to get Zoro to really think about how this works!

"I've written about a million songs about her-" Zoro starts with a laugh, but Sanji interrupts.

"I don't mean about her, I mean write a song _as_ her. Write about how you think she thinks, and how you think she thinks about you." he clarifies firmly.

"That's kind of an odd request." the other mans says uncertainly, as if he's not sure that Sanji isn't trying to trick him into something bigger.

"That's my demand, take it or leave it." Sanji says, wanting to stand firm on this.

"Sure, whatever. I promise if you do." Zoro laughs, sounding a little tired.

"I... I can promise not to tell anyone or take you to the hospital but I can't promise that I won't freak out, not without knowing what's wrong. It's not really something I have a lot of control over, but I'll try." Sanji offers honestly, his mind is already running over a whole list of things that could be wrong with Zoro and not liking any of them.

"Fair enough, deal." the guitarist says softly in his ear.

"Hold up a second." He says and unplugs his headphones from the phone and pulls them off. He presses the phone back to his ear and holds it there with his shoulder whilst he shucks his shoes on.

"Tell me what happened." He says, leaving his room and heading down the stairs quickly.

"I don't... I knew she was going to be mad when she found out about the competition. I'm not dumb." Zoro says in a resigned kind of way.

"Uh-huh." Sanji says as he passes Usopp on the stairs and waves at him as he goes past. He chews his lip. What would Usopp say if he knew where Sanji was going and why? How does Zoro think that Usopp would react?

"I wanted to get her in a good mood before she found out, you know so that when she did find out she'd drop from a higher point and maybe not get so bad." Zoro explains softly. Sanji chews his lip as he climbs into his car, he doesn't like just how much thought Zoro devotes to this sort of thing. He's far too used to walking on eggshells.

"Right, I'm in the car, you're on speaker but it's just me here. Where am I headed?" He asks, turning the engine on.

"Drive to Baby's place, I'll tell you more as you go." the other man answers. Sanji frowns but pulls out and does as he's told.

"How'd you try to get in her good books then?" He asks absently, looking over his shoulder as he reverses.

Zoro laughs then, an amused and slightly mocking sound, as if Sanji's just asked something stupid.

"How do you think, dumbass?" Zoro says down the line, his tone seedy enough for Sanji to get just what he's implying. The thought derails Sanji enough that he nearly collides with Robin's gorgeous sports car. Sanji's jaw drops. He supposes that he shouldn't be surprised. Baby is Zoro's girlfriend after all, but somehow with the fact that she turns him black and blue on a regular basis he'd sort of thought that it maybe didn't happen. A terrible thought makes Sanji feel sick and he has the steering wheel in a white knuckle grip as he works his tongue in his mouth and tries to speak.

"Zoro- with Baby... please tell me that it was... consensual?" He grits out.

"Sanji! For fuck's sake, she's my girlfriend!" Zoro exclaims down the phone to him.

"That doesn't mean anything, just because she's-" he protests.

"For the love of god, curly-brow! Yes, my girlfriend and I fucked, it was my idea, you want I should send you pictures next time so you can see?!" the other man snaps.

Sanji's jaw clicks shut and he's glad that Zoro can't see his face right now. Zoro knows how he feels about him, he knows damn well that Sanji... that his feelings aren't platonic. He'd only been asking out of concern, Baby hurts Zoro too much as is and he wasn't going to put the idea of her hurting him a different way entirely out of the question. He's glad that Zoro isn't being hurt like that but he doesn't need the fact that Zoro's sleeping with someone else shoved in his face quite like that.

"Fuck, Sanji... I..." Zoro's voice comes over the phone, sounding... regretful maybe?

"Forget it." Sanji says tightly and keeps driving.

"Where are you? I can see Baby's from here." Sanji says, spotting her house further down the road.

"I'm... not too sure where it is from there, I got lost. But I'm round the back of the Burger King that's nearest hers." Zoro tells him.

"Ugh. Tell me you're not eating that crap for lunch." He winces in disgust, turning his car around the corner to where he's vaguely sure that the "restaurant" is in. If you could call it that.

"Not when I could have your food at home." Zoro laughs quietly.

"Quit flirting with me, asshole." Sanji shoots back, his face reddening and making him glad that he's alone in his car right now. He has to drive a fair bit but before too long he spots the tall Burger King sign in the distance and heads towards it.

"I'm nearly there now." Sanji says, filling the silence that's fallen between them, only broken by Zoro commenting on the cars that go by and Sanji bitching about Zoro getting lost.

"Is that your car I hear pulling up?" Zoro asks him as Sanji puts on his handbrake and get out, slamming the door behind him.

"Hope so, or I'm at the wrong goddamn fast food joint." He grumbles, unhappy at being in the mere presence of such an abomination.

"No, I can hear you." Zoro says, hanging up.

"SANJI!" Zoro's voice comes from nearby, not over the phone this time. Sanji puts his phone back in his pocket and follows the sound of the guitarist's voice.

He rounds a sticky and unpleasant dumpster to find his way into the employee car parking area, there he spots the familiar figure of Zoro hunched up on the kerb, his back to a fence. His hand is clutching at his hair and Sanji grits his teeth.

"I thought you said you didn't get hit in the head." He accuses faintly, coming closer.

"I didn't get _hit_..." Zoro reasons.

Sanji comes closer and crouches down. On the floor between Zoro's feet is a small puddle of blood, an amount that Sanji doesn't like but not enough to warrant a worrying amount of blood loss that would make him take Zoro to the hospital regardless of his promise.

"Oi, look at me, idiot." Sanji orders him softly, reaching out and disentangling Zoro's hand from his hair. He feels Zoro's fingers twine with his and Sanji notes that there's no blood in Zoro's hair.

"So, aside from avoiding telling your girlfriend about something that will send her off the deep end, it's a good idea to be away from things she can throw at you. Learnt my lesson there. Next time I'll maybe try to break that kind of news when she's not near a whole block of knives." Zoro mumbles softly and tilts his head to look up at Sanji.

Sanji's breath catches in his throat. The entire left side of Zoro's face is covered in blood and as he looks at him there's a gash running from above Zoro's left eyebrow to halfway down his left cheek, going over his eye too! There's just... so much blood! Zoro's eye is shut and Sanji is terrified because he doesn't know if Zoro's eye is even okay under that! What if it's not and he's blind in one side now?! With shaking hands he reaches out and touches either side of Zoro's jaw, just holding his head in his hands and feeling a wave of fierce protection roll over him.

"Sanji, this counts as freaking out. Breathe." Zoro reminds him, reaching out and shaking Sanji's shoulder as if he was the one in need of medical attention instead of Zoro!

"If you can't see through that eye I'm taking you to the hospital right now, I don't care what I promised." Sanji grits out, his hands shaking against Zoro's skin. Zoro smirks and tilts his head at Zoro curiously, as if Sanji is some sweet endearing creature that Zoro's not encountered before.

"I can open it and see, I already checked. It just hurts like a bitch to do it. So will you take me home or what?" Zoro asks with a huff, as if Sanji is being over dramatic and Zoro hasn't had half of his face slashed open.

Sanji sighs and pulls Zoro to his feet, leading him towards the car and even opening the passenger side door for him, despite Zoro's protests that he's perfectly capable of doing that himself. He drives them home.

"Does this happen a lot? With knives and things I mean?" Sanji questions, not taking his eyes off of the road.

"It's the first time she's done this sober. That's why I didn't even think about the knives being right there." Zoro shrugs and wipes a drip of blood off of his chin with his shirt sleeve.

Sanji's mouth silently works around how on earth to ask what Zoro means by that. Does that imply that she's done something like this before but she was drunk? What...

"Trust me, don't ask." Zoro cuts in. Sanji shakes his head but he's pretty sure that he's not going to be able to shake that question from his mind so easily. He knows that it'll haunt him.

"So are you still going to do the competition then?" Sanji asks as they pull up to a stop at the light.

"I signed, didn't I? I'm still going to compete, I've just got to hope that she gets knocked out of the competition before we have to battle her." Zoro answers with a grimace. Sanji doesn't say that he hopes that they knock her out of the competition personally. He wants nothing more than to be at Zoro's side, staring Baby down and kicking her ass. Just to show her how good Zoro really is and how much she doesn't deserve him. He loathes her more with each passing day.

"What are you going to tell the others? They're going to notice that, there's no make-up magic you can do to cover that up." Sanji says, changing the subject and pointing to Zoro's cut face.

"That's my problem, not yours. I'll think of something." Zoro says firmly and Sanji takes his cue to drop the subject.

From that point on they drive back to the house in silence. When they pull in Sanji goes in first, checking to see that the coast is clear before he and Zoro sprint up to their floor and manage to make it into their shared bathroom without running into anyone else.

Sanji locks both doors to stop anyone else coming in. Zoro heads towards the sink and gingerly pulls his shirt off, trying not to catch his face as he does so. As the black shirt rises up his tan back Sanji sees rows and rows of scratches on there. Nothing serious, and nothing that will be there tomorrow morning either, Sanji doesn't need to be a rocket scientist to work out just who put those scratches on Zoro's naked back and what Zoro had been doing to inspire such an action. Zoro hisses and tilts his head as the shirt comes free just catching the top of the cut on his face. He holds it before himself examining it.

"I think this one is dark enough to be saved. The blood should come out, don't you think?" Zoro asks turning to Sanji and holding it out. Sanji glances at the shirt and nods mutely. There's a hickey blooming on Zoro's collar bone and a smear of lipstick on his shoulder.

Sanji screws his eyes shut and tries to focus. Zoro is hurt and he needs him, the last thing that he should be feeling right now is jealousy.

"Sit your ass down and let me help, marimo," he orders, herding Zoro to sit on the edge of the bath. Zoro shrugs and does as he's told, looking up at Sanji with his one open and undamaged eye.

"So what's with the promise that you made me make? Why do you want me to write a song so bad?" Zoro questions him.

"Does it matter? You promised." Sanji reminds him and dampens a sheet of gauze with anti-septic and runs it over the cut on Zoro's face. Zoro sucks a breath in sharply between clenched teeth, but with the blood out of the way he can see that it's not too deep a cut. It'll still probably scar but it could have been far worse.

"Okay, give me that, let me do my eye myself, or I'm going to jump and you're going to actually blind me." the guitarist snorts and takes the blood and antiseptic soaked bandage off of Sanji. With a wince he runs it over his own eyelid.

Sanji watches unhappily and turns to the cupboard to see if he can find some of those adhesive butterfly stitches that Zoro used before. He's not really sure how Zoro organises this thing so it takes some rummaging through to find it. He hears a sharp intake of breath and glances back to see Zoro looking down at his phone.

"I need to pick this up. Please... just keep quiet okay? Please?" Zoro pleads with Sanji. Sanji frowns and nods, not understanding quite what Zoro's asking. The green haired man sighs and picks up the call, seemingly on impulse he presses the speaker button, looking up at Sanji as he does so.

"Zoro? Are you there?" Baby's voice comes through the handset, echoing in the bathroom. Sanji clamps his jaw shut and gives the phone a look that would set in on fire if he could.

"Yeah, I'm here." Zoro answers instead, giving Sanji a pointed 'shut up' look. Sanji pulls a face and gets out the q-tips and soaks one in antiseptic. He kneels down on the bathroom mat between Zoro's knees and leans up to gently clean the parts of Zoro's cut that they hadn't reached before. Now that most of the blood is gone it's a little easier to get at the cut.

"I'm so... so sorry about what happened earlier. I didn't mean to- I don't even really remember what happened. I just lost it, it'll never happen again love, I've never done anything like that before, it's so unlike me." Baby says, sounding so earnest and sweet with a hint of fear in her voice. Sanji feels Zoro's legs tense at his sides and Sanji threads his free hand into Zoro's hair, stroking in small circles to calm him down.

"I never meant to do it. You just made me so angry. You know how important succeeding is and if you compete as well it's like you're trying to stop me from achieving my dream! It's so selfish and it makes me so angry! So I'm sorry that I hurt you but I really couldn't control myself." She adds. Sanji watches Zoro's shoulders pull closer in, as if he's trying to make himself smaller. He doesn't think that Zoro's even aware that he's doing it, but it just looks so un-Zoro like.

Zoro chews his lip and looks down at Sanji, saying nothing.

"Are you ignoring me?" She demands suddenly, her voice sharp. Zoro's muscles jolt at her tone.

"No, of course not. I'm just... trying to stop this from bleeding is all. I'm just distracted." Zoro answers quickly.

"Is it bad? I didn't cut you too badly did I?" Baby asks, into the silence.

"It's shallow, I can still see but it's going to scar, I'm pretty sure." Zoro replies as Sanji tosses the cotton bud aside and picks up the stitches.

"Well, I suppose it's good that you're not looking to leave me huh? You'd never get another girlfriend with a scar that big on your face!" Baby laughs down the phone. Sanji grits his teeth and feels his face pull into a silent snarl, he locks eyes with Zoro and shakes his head vehemently. Zoro looks down at him silently for a second, his face conflicted.

"I don't want another girlfriend." Zoro says softly, his eyes never leaving Sanji's.

"Good!" Baby says loudly.

Sanji can't understand this woman, who calls to apologise and insults someone like this?! But... he supposes that he knows. Baby's calling up and making Zoro feel sorry for her and then making sure that he knows that he can't leave because he has no one else to go to. He growls quietly and affixes the first stitch, making Zoro gasp.

"Ow." Zoro says softly, batting Sanji away and standing up by the mirror to do it himself.

"What are you doing?" Baby questions him, sounding curious.

"Just putting stitches on, it'll heal faster." Zoro answers obediently.

"Huh. Okay." Baby says indifferently down the phone.

"You're not mad at me are you? You sound mad." She asks, her voice going small and timid. Sanji scowls at the phone before shutting his eyes and resting his forehead on the back of Zoro's neck and letting his hands fall to the other man's hips. He doesn't believe Baby's tone at all, she's not scared, she's just manipulating Zoro.

"I'm not mad, Baby." Zoro answers softly and Sanji's hands tense.

"You're not going to leave me are you? I don't think I could cope if you..." she trails off with a stifled sob. Sanji grits his teeth to resist the temptation to lean over Zoro's shoulder and shout at the phone that he fucking well should leave her!

"Of course not." Zoro answers instead and Sanji heaves a sigh, it was never going to be that easy.

"You're still mad, I can hear you. You're angry with me!" Baby wails down the phone. Zoro looks over his shoulder and shoots Sanji a warning look.

"I'm not mad Baby, honest. You know I can't stay angry at you. We're fine, really." Zoro insists. He tries to place another stitch but fails, he's too tense. Sanji shakes his head and gently turns Zoro around. He throws the useless stitch away and peels a new one from the sterile adhesive wrapper. He sticks it to one side of Zoro's cut, just under his eye and then, pulling the wound closed as much as possible, sticks the other side down.

"Good. Talk to that red-headed bitch, pull out of the competition, I mean it." Baby orders and hangs up the phone. Zoro heaves a sigh and Sanji feels him start to relax. Sanji grits his teeth and stays silent, his focus on putting Zoro back together.

"I know what you're thinking, don't say it." Zoro mutters irritably.

"This is me not saying anything. Check out how quiet I am." Sanji shoots back and sticks the last stitch down. Zoro takes over and finds a big enough gauze patch and tape and presses it to the now sealed cut to keep it clean.

Zoro looks like he wants to say something, to somehow justify what Baby said but perhaps he's aware that there is no justification for the things that she said.

"Are you going to drop out?" Sanji asks eventually, picking Zoro's shirt up off of the floor and throwing it into the laundry hamper that the two of them share.

"No." Zoro answers firmly, sounding far more confident than he did on the phone. Sanji looks over at him and sees that Zoro is standing properly again, at his full height and not hunched in on himself to look smaller.

"Good. I really want you to play, it's going to be awesome." he smiles at Zoro, earning a smile in return.

"She's going to be really angry when she finds out." Zoro adds, glancing anxiously at his phone, as if he's concerned that somehow it could still be recording.

"Are you asking my advice? Because you know what I think you should do." he points out. Zoro should ditch her psycho ass as soon as humanly possible.

"I'm not." Zoro answers flatly.

"Well then. Remember you owe me a song for this, about you but as Baby. Don't forget." Sanji reminds him with a grin and lets himself out of the bathroom.

Sanji leans against the shut door from inside his room and resolves to go and make lunch to take his mind off of the whole situation. He hopes that Zoro will think seriously about their deal and try to get into Baby's head. Maybe then, especially with the conversation they just had, he'll realise how manipulative she is.

As he descends the stairs he can't help but wonder why Zoro put the call on speakerphone at all. He understands that Zoro had to answer it then, Baby was already angry enough without Zoro "ignoring her calls" or some shit like that. But Zoro could have just answered without letting Sanji hear any of it. So why did he?

He can only conclude that Zoro wanted him to hear it. Maybe he was hoping to reassure Sanji that their relationship was okay (which is so many different levels of not going to happen) or perhaps... perhaps Zoro just wanted someone else to hear it, maybe to convince himself that he wasn't the only one thinking that Baby was being mean. He can see how easily Baby twists anything that Zoro says or doesn't say, maybe Zoro just wanted someone else there, so he could make sure that he wasn't being crazy.

Whatever, he was just speculating. But perhaps... perhaps he helped somehow? Who knows.

Zoro doesn't come down for lunch and when dinner rolls around he's absent as well. Sanji brings him soup and finds him sat in the middle of his bed surrounded by sheets of paper. Some discarded, some simply removed and laid out, a few are scrunched up into frustrated little balls and strewn about the floor. Zoro is songwriting!

The guitarist doesn't even seem to notice Sanji's entrance and Sanji has to walk all the way up to him and rap his knuckles on his head to get his attention. Zoro jumps and when he sees that it's Sanji he snaps his notepad to his chest.

"It's not done, cook!" Zoro snaps, scowling at Sanji like he's some kind of sneaky spy.

"I'm not here to peek on your work, idiot. I'm here to make sure you don't starve, so you're gonna drop that book and eat this and I'm going to sit here and make sure you do." Sanji announces, handing Zoro the bowl of soup and fresh bread rolls that he'd specifically buttered for Zoro before he came up.

Zoro fumbles with them and Sanji rolls his eyes and takes the plate and bread back, leaving Zoro to just balance with the soup. Sanji sweeps some space for himself on Zoro's bed and sprawls down on the mattress.

"Please. Make yourself comfortable." Zoro says flatly, taking the plate off of Sanji and resting it on his chest.

"Here you can be my table if you're going to take up space, at least you can be useful." Zoro adds.

"I live to serve." Sanji says with an overly elaborate flourish with his arms that nearly dislodges the bread on his chest.

"I don't need to be supervised you know. I think I can manage soup." Zoro murmurs distractedly, his spoon halfway to his mouth as he scans through one of his pages.

"And this is why I'm supervising you. More eating, less reading. If I go you'll just get distracted and not eat." he points out stubbornly.

"So?" Zoro challenges, equally stubbornly.

Sanji glares at him and Zoro matches the expression. Without disturbing the plate on his chest Sanji picks up his leg and kicks Zoro's papers off of the bed.

"Oops. I get restless legs when people aren't eating their meals." he says insincerely.

"OI!" the guitarist yelps.

"Oh no, it's happening again!" Sanji exclaims, preparing to throw more paper off of the bed. Zoro growls and starts eating his soup properly and so Sanji relaxes.

He and Zoro fall into one of their comfortable silences. It's easier for him to not say something that'll piss Zoro off if he's silent and easier for Zoro not to deliberately drive him mad if he does the same. It works. Unfortunately there's only so long that either of them can maintain that, and this time Sanji cracks first.

"So, are you writing that song that I asked for? How's it going? I'm seeing a lot of paper around." he comments, resisting the temptation to pick up any of the bits of paper around him and look at them to get a sneak peek.

"It's really fucking hard. But... I'm getting some good stuff I guess. I think I've got two songs going on here, one started coming out kind of well but it was from me and you wanted from her. It's starting to get there though, it's not exactly a feel good exercise though." Zoro grumbles above him.

Sanji doesn't say anything. The fact that it makes Zoro feel shitty to think about his relationship with Baby was very much the point, and whilst he doesn't like Zoro feeling bad at all he'd rather that he feel bad now, realise that his relationship is fucking awful and leave her instead of being miserable with her forever. It was a lesser of two evils situation.

"Where did you learn to cook anyway? This isn't that bad actually." Zoro asks after a while.

"Hey, hold back that praise there moss-brain, I'll get a case of the vapours and faint if you compliment me like that." Sanji says in a voice as breathy and fluttering as he can manage without bursting out laughing.

"Shut your yap! I'm trying to say something nice here! It's good soup is all!" Zoro fumes, jabbing Sanji in the side with a spoon.

"Oh! Roronoa! I feel a swoon coming on, thank goodness I'm already on your bed!" he gasps, pressing his palm to his forehead like some 18th century maiden.

Sanji devolves into fits of giggles right about the time that Zoro sees fit to put his half finished soup safely out of reach and introduce Sanji's spleen to the end of Zoro's foot. Sanji being the adult that he is absolutely does not retaliate and any insinuations that they bickered and jabbed at each other until Nami yelled at them to stop from her room below are pure lies. Terrible terrible lies.

"I think I'd better go clean up after dinner and go to bed. Nami said at dinner that she's got this big game plan that we've got to be up bright and early for. Which you would know if you'd been at dinner." Sanji points out from where he is sprawled on the floor.

"I'm choosing to ignore you, now move your skinny ass, you're sprawled across my guitar tabs for this song of yours." Zoro orders him, flapping his hands at Sanji to get him to move.

"I'm not skinny!" Sanji squawks indignantly. Zoro says it like he's some stick thin fourteen year old boy! He looks after his body very well thank you very much!

"You are, Baby wears bigger jeans than you. You could get photographed in your underwear for one of those stupid designer underwear boxes. Now move it skinny!" Zoro orders, shoving him over and picking up the papers that were under him. Sanji's eyebrows climb up into his hairline. That's considerably more of a verbal slip than he's used to Zoro making, maybe there is something to his theory that songwriting makes Zoro more open.

"Wow Zoro, spend a lot of time thinking about me in just my underwear, huh?" He smirks up at the other man.

Zoro's mouth shuts so fast that Sanji is fairly sure that he heard his teeth click. Sanji decides to push his luck. He kneels up and pulls his shirt up and shimmies his jeans down a little.

"Actually, this _is_ designer underwear. Calvin Klein, see?" Sanji says around the shirt that he's holding in his teeth. He might possibly be making a little effort to flex his abs as he leans back to show off the waistband of his underwear.

Zoro is now an interesting shade of red and the non-bandaged eye that Sanji can see is running over Sanji's low hemline.

"Oh well, I'd better get to these dishes I guess. Wouldn't want to disturb your writing, marimo." Sanji chirps, dropping his shirt and innocently sauntering out of Zoro's room with perhaps a little more shimmy to his hips than was strictly necessary.

He doesn't look back of course, that would ruin the perfect exit, and he doesn't check in on Zoro for the rest of the night either. But when he goes to bed he can still hear the occasional soft guitar note floating into his room from across the hall and the sounds of quiet writing and notes pull Sanji instantly into sleep.

When he awakes Zoro isn't in his room but there is still paper strewn across the place. Sanji has a feeling that he knows where Zoro might be and heads down to the music room. It seems that he's not been the only one to have that idea as most of the others are there. The last note of something hangs in the air as Sanji enters and he hears Zoro frustratedly growl on the other side of the glass as he makes a gesture to Chopper who is sitting in his control chair in pink pyjamas with little reindeers on.

"I'll play it through your headphones again Zoro!" Chopper says into his microphone and types frantically.

"What...?" Sanji asks, looking at the others.

"He's already recorded the guitar, so he's having that play in his headphones whilst he sings. It plays in here too so that we can check if it's all synching up." Franky explains quietly.

"At least he's not playing his guitar with his teeth anymore. Apparently he did that last night and his e-string snapped and caught him right across the face! Idiot." Nami tuts, shaking her head.

"Only Zoro." Franky laughs.

Sanji bites his tongue and says nothing.

"This song is so creepy though, I don't know if it should go on the album. It's just really..." Nami trails off as Chopper waves his hand at them to be quiet.

"In three, Zoro." Chopper says over the mic and hovers his hand over the button on his keyboard.

Chopper counts down and his finger hovers over the button, Zoro's head nods in count with each digit that Chopper counts down. Zoro is sat on one of Sanji's barstools and when he leans in to sing his voice shoots straight up Sanji's spine like an electric current. His voice is deep and close and as it plays through the control room Sanji swears he can hear it inside his head.

"_I'm a killer, _

_cold and wrathful_

_silent sleeper, _

_I've been inside your bedroom_

_I've murdered half the town_

_left you love notes on their headstones_

_I'll fill the graveyards until I have you."_

"Creepy." Nami whispers lowly, her voice soft underneath Zoro's pre-recorded guitar playing around them.

Sanji swallows thickly. Zoro's voice is dark and threatening, sinister and calm and he is most definitely inside Baby's head and he's not sure that he wants to be in there himself.

"_Moonlight walking, _

_I smell your softness_

_carnivorous and lusting to track you down among the pines._

_I want you stuffed into my mouth_

_hold you down and tear you open, _

_live inside you, _

_love, I'd never hurt you."_

Sanji watches Zoro's hands tighten on the edge of the stool as he says that. The line perhaps far more honest than any that's gone before.

"_But I'll grind against your bones until our marrows mix_

_I will eat you slowly..."_

Zoro tilts his head back and almost sighs out the next line.

"_Oh, the horror of our love_

_never so much blood pulled through my veins._

_Oh, the horror of our love... never so much blood"_

The guitar picks up and Sanji shivers, the others are creeped out by the song but they don't know just how real it is. But as Zoro continues Sanji gets the feeling that Zoro's perspective is slipping back from Baby to himself and somehow it hurts more.

"_I wake in terror, _

_blackbirds screaming_

_dark cathedrals spilling midnight on their altars_

_I'm your servant, my immortal_

_pale and perfect, such unholy heaving -_

_the statues close their eyes, the room is changing_

_break my skin and drain me."_

Zoro shakes his head and like that he seems to be back to singing as Baby.

"_Ancient language, speak through fingers_

_the awful edges where you end and I begin_

_inside your mouth I cannot see -_

_there's catastrophe in everything I'm touching_

_as I sweat I crush you._

_And I hold your beating chambers until they beat no more_

_you die like angels sing..."_

"_Oh, the horror of our love_

_never so much blood pulled through my veins._

_Oh, the horror of our love... never so much blood"_

The guitar picks up again and it's Zoro's white acoustic, playing sinister versions of notes that Sanji had heard in his sleep whilst Zoro worked the song out of his mind. Zoro sighs and seems to reign himself in a little. When he sings again his voice is a little calmer but no less dark.

"_You're a ghost, love, nightgown flowing_

_your body blue and walking along the continental shelf_

_you are a dream among the sharks_

_beautiful and terrifying, lit and restless_

_we dance in dark suspension._

_And you bury me in the ocean floor beneath you_

_where they'll never hear us scream."_

"_Oh, the horror of our love_

_never so much blood pulled through my veins._

_Oh, the horror of our love... never so much blood"_

The last notes end and Chopper ends the recording and nods to himself. Zoro heaves a sigh that Sanji can't hear, separated as they are by glass and with the microphone off the wall is soundproof. Zoro looks worn out and torn apart inside. Sanji feels wretched for doing this to Zoro but as Zoro looks up at him, with both eyes now as he's removed the gauze and has just left the stitches holding the cut above and below his eye shut, Zoro's expression seems resigned and steely. Sanji's breath catches in his throat and he wonders just what writing this has shown Zoro. But as soon as the eye contact started Zoro breaks it and turns his back on them, getting up and stretching his back out. Sanji decides that now is a good time to make himself scarce with the preparation of breakfast.

The song this time is "The Horror of our Love" by Ludo


End file.
